Anatoly Malykhin
Country - Russia
Weight Class - Heavyweight
Age : 33
Promotion - ONE
Record - 10-0
33 is kind of old to be starting a hype train, but heavyweights tend to peak a bit later than smaller fighters so fuck it. Malykhin utterly crushed Amir Aliakbari in their fight and while some of that was Aliakbari looking bad, we still have to consider that he had a good record coming in and had beaten some decent guys, Malykhin made him look like a can, wobbling him early, dominating the world class wrestler in the grappling exchanges and then spectacularly dispatching of him.
Arjan Bhullar must be shitting himself.
Marcus Buchecha
Country - Brazil
Weight Class - Heavyweight
Age : 31
Promotion - ONE
Record - 1-0
This is only the 2nd time I've hype trained someone after their pro-debut, but the only real question as to whether Buchecha deserved to be hyped was whether he could translate his BJJ to an MMA setting. The early signs looked promising as he took Anderson Silva (not that one) down with ease before dominating him on the ground in a methodical fashion en route to a sub. Of course the challenge will be against people with decent TDD and we didn't really see anything of his standup, but so far, so good.
Rae Yoon Ok
Country - South Korea
Weight Class - Lightweight
Age : 30
Promotion - ONE
Record - 16-3
Now while I didn't think Ok won the fight against Christian Lee, I still think he deserves credit for an excellent performance in staying competitive enough to have a debateable decision with someone I think of highly of as Lee. Ok showed nice crisp striking, excellent takedown defence, great submission defence and good cardio to give Lee the toughest test in his recent career. A rematch seems inevitable so he'll get a chance to prove to me that he's the better fighter.
Kim Jae Woong
Country - South Korea
Weight Class - Featherweight
Age : 28
Promotion - ONE
Record - 12-4
Another spectacular performance in an evening of great performances on the ONE card. Kim has impressed me with his hands before but he took it to the next level here in using his crisp hands to dispatch of former FW champion Martin Nguyen. His next fight could well be against the winner of the Le Vs Tonon match for the title.