Worldwide MMA Preview – ONE FC 27 and KSW 31

Shinya Aoki will defend his ONE Championship lightweight title against Koji Ando in the main event of ONE Championship 27 on Friday afternoon. The submission wizard is unbeaten since his 2012 defeat to Eddie Alvarez and six of those seven wins have been by way of submission.

Ando is on a fine run of form himself. He defeated the current ONE 145 champion Jadamba Narantungalag and two wins since that triumph gives him the biggest fight of his career. Ando has never been finished in his career and will provide as tough a test for Aoki as he is likely to find in ONE right now.

Aoki-Ando is not the only fight of interest on the ONE card coming from Singapore. In the co-main event Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke takes on Roy Doliguez for the inaugural ONE Strawweight (115 pounds) title. With none of the major American promotions currently employing a strawweight division the winner of this fight will have a good case for being the best 115 pounder in the world.  Dejdamrong is of particular interest. He is a long time Muay Thai competitor and has won the prestigious Lumpinee stadium title on three occasions and is a veteran of over 300 professional Muay Thai fights. His transition to MMA has so far looked outstanding. Since his debut last June he has racked up a 4-0 record with two knockouts and two submissions. Looking to put the first blemish on his record is Roy Doliguez, a Filipino who himself holds a 6-1 record. Doliquez is a former professional boxer and is much more experienced in an MMA setting than Dejdamrong which should provide for an explosive and exciting fight.

Russian featherweight Marat Gafurov will put his perfect 10-0 professional record on the line against the Malaysian Ev Ting. Gafurov is a veteran of M-1 and defeated Rob Lisita in his ONE debut. One of these two Russians could easily find themselves close to a featherweight title shot with an impressive win. Another undefeated fighter looking to make an impression is Hawaii’s Lowen Tynanes. The 24 year old has finished five of his six wins but will face a stiff test against the Kazakh fighter Kuat Khamitov who is much more experienced than Tynanes and is on a six fight winning streak of his own. I was excited to see the Russian Timofey Nastyukhin taking on the experienced Australian Rob Lisita. Nastyukhin announced himself to fans of ONE with an emphatic flying knee to Eduard Folayang back in December and is dropping to featherweight for this bout, unfortunately Lisita was not medically cleared for the bout and it was pulled from the card on the day of the weigh ins.

The preliminary portion of the card will be streamed free on Facebook.  It features four bouts that contain largely inexperienced fighters from areas not thought to be traditional MMA hotbeds such as host nation Singapore, Egypt and Pakistan.  The action kicks off at 11:50 Irish time.

Polands largest MMA promotion KSW will hold also be presenting a big event this weekend. KSW gets huge television ratings in Poland and have stated their ambition recently to hold an event at Warsaw’s National Stadium.

Saturday’s KSW 31 is headlined by a middleweight fight between Michal Materla and Tomasz Drwal. Drwal will be familiar to UFC fans as he went 3-3 in the promotion before his release in 2010. Since then he has won four fights with three finishes. Materla has built up a great record in a European context but this is set to be his toughest test to date.

In the co-main event former World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski takes on Rolles Gracie. Pudzianowski has lost a lot of weight for this fight which should improve his cardio. Meanwhile, Gracie is at the lowest point of his career coming off a loss to Derrick Mehmen in WSOF and Karol Bedorf in KSW. He will certainly be the more technical man while Pudzianowski will have the obvious strength advantage.

This is one of KSW deepest cards ever and it can be seen as a signal of intent for the future.  Also competing will be Karol Bedorf, the Polish heavyweight will look to improve his 11-2 record against Australian journeyman Peter Graham. Bedorf needs a much tougher test at this point in his career if he is to make the necessary improvements to become a top heavyweight on the world stage.

One time UFC competitor Goran Reljic will try to improve his current three fight win streak against former Bellator light heavyweight champion Atilla Vegh.Vegh hasn’t fought since his split decision loss to Emmanuel Newton in March 2014 so people are very eager to see how he looks after the layoff.