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| (Image Source: ABS-CBN News/ONE Championship) |
Prior to its historic first event in Tokyo, Japan on the 31st of March,
Asia's largest mixed martial arts (MMA) organization ONE Championship
officially announced its exclusive partnership with Japanese combat sports
organization Pancrase where they will work together in providing the ladder's athletes
the opportunity to showcase their martial arts prowess and further develop
their skills on the global MMA stage.
Founded in 1993 by renouned Japanese professional wrestlers Masakatsu
Funaki and Minoru Suzuki, Pancrase combines various forms of martial arts such
as wrestling, boxing, judo, sambo, karate, kenpo, jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai among
others. It has produced a number of top Japanese athletes competing in ONE
Championship such as former Pancrase lightweight champion Yuya Wakamatsu,
former welterweight champion Daichi Abe and former lightweight champion Kazuki
Tokudome. Heck, it is also a springboard to some of the world's finest MMA
stars like Yuki Kondo, Bas Rutten, Josh Barnett, and Ken Shamrock as well. The
name of the organization is derived from the word pankration which is an
ancient form of combat sport that was part of the Ancient Olympic Games.
"ONE Championship is excited to offer the same opportunity to Pancrase
athletes and World Champions to compete on the world's largest stage for
martial arts. We are fully committed to developing Japan's martial arts
ecosystem from the amateur up to the professional level," said ONE chairman
and CEO Chatri Sityodtong. On the other hand, Pancrase president Masakazu Sakai
believed that the beginning of the long-term relationship between the two
organizations will further shape the future of martial arts not only in Japan
but also around the globe.
In fact, two of Pancrase's finest stars are set to compete in front of
Japanese MMA fans inside the Ryogoku Kogukikan on March 31, 2019 for ONE Championship's
first event in Tokyo, Japan dubbed A New Era. Yuya Wakamatsu is set to fight no
less than former UFC flyweight champion Dimitrious "Mighty Mouse"
Johnson, while Senso Ikeda will face Philippines' Danny Kingad replacing Andrew
Leone who is suffering from an injury. Both Wakamatsu and Ikeda will fight in
the ONE flyweight world grand prix quarterfinals.
Aside from these two intriguing bouts featuring top Pancrase stars, ONE's
stacked Japan fight card will be headlined by three world championship rematches
(Eduard Folayang vs. Shinya Aoki for the lightweight world championship, Aung La
N Sang vs. Ken Hasegawa for the middleweight world championship, and Kevin
Belingon vs. Bibiano Fernandez for the bantamweight world championship), a
highly-anticipated women's world championship showdown (Xiong Jing Nan vs. ONE Women's
Atomweight World Champion Angela Lee for the women's strawweight world
championship), the thrilling debut of Eddie Alvarez in the ONE lightweight world
grand prix and a ONE Super Series Muay Thai showdown between Thailand's
Yodsankai IWE Fairtex and Andy Sowyer.
Catch ONE Championship: A
New Era on March 31, Sunday at 6:00 pm live on ABS-CBN S+A (Free TV Channel 23,
ABS-CBN TV Plus Channel 2, Skycable SD Channel 17 and HD Channel 166, SkyDirect
SD Channel 8 and HD Channel 24, Cignal Channel 23) and online via the ONE Super
App, ONE Championship's official YouTube channel and iWant Sports. For more ONE
Championship news and updates, visit onefc.com or sports.abs-cbn.com.
