ONE Championship™: Titles and Titans set for August 27th in Indonesia, starring Sapo vs. Svirid

http://onefc.com/news/817-luis-santos-and-igor-svirid-headline-one-titles-titans.html
http://philboxing.com/news/story-121257.html

Main event-
Welterweight bout: Luis "Sapo" Santos vs. Igor "Lionheart" Svirid

Co-main event-
Middleweight bout: Marcin Prachnio vs. Jake Butler

Undercard-
Featherweight bout: "Magni-" Vincent Latoel vs. Edward Kelly
Featherweight bout: Anthony Engelen vs. Sami Amin
Featherweight bout: Yohan Mulia Legowo vs. Sunoto
Featherweight bout: Mario Satya Wirawan vs. Bernard Soriano

ONE's returning to Indonesia at the end of this month. The title of this card is a little funny, as there are neither championship bouts nor gigantic humanoid monsters that eat people on the card. However, there are two bouts which are strongly hinted to be title-eliminators, so it's a fitting name, since titles are involved in that sense.
ONE's had a history of struggling in Indonesia. Not enough to not visit the region, but enough to not make it a place for their bigger fights and to change some of their matchmaking sensibilities for the region, and they're dropping from the 15,000 seat Istora Senayan arena to the 5,000 seat Jakarta Convention Center because of this. I personally think the lack of an Indonesian star is a large part of why they've struggled in the area so much-- they almost had one with Fransino Tirta, but relationships between Tirta and ONE have turned sour (or Tirta's retired, or both) and that put a hamper on those plans and prevented ONE from taking their Indonesia campaign to the next level like they have with Singapore and Manila. Maybe having a one-night tournament between some nubile Indonesian prospects (like they do with other regions) would help 'em out.
Tirta's started his own promotion in Indonesia called One Pride MMA, by the way.
Anyways, ONE's got an interesting card coming up towards the end of August, and it's filled with about as many Indonesian- and Indonesia-located fighters as they've got and it's got two very good fights on it with title implications.

Here's some stuff I wrote about the fights, if anyone's interested:

Spoiler

In the main-event, former welterweight title challenger Luis "Sapo" Santos is fighting the inaugural ONE middleweight champion Igor "Lionheart" Svirid in what has strong title implications for the winner. Sapo's an over-80-fight veteran known best for his rivalry with Ben Askren; in the first match, he arguably gave Askren his toughest fight to date-- including the fact that the fight only lasted about two minutes-- when he stuffed- and reversed all of Askren's takedown attempts and landed some hard kicks between that, before an accidental eye-poke by Askren stopped the bout.
Askren's accusations that Sapo faked the severity of the eye-poke combined with the accusations that he faked being unable to speak English, despite the fact that he's lived in America for years, cuz' he didn't wanna fight began a heated rivalry between the two fighters.
They were scheduled to fight last November, but Sapo missed weight by two or three pounds and was later reported as being incapable of making (or refusing to make-) 190 pounds on the day of the fight, which led to the fight's cancellation and statements from the heads of ONE that he'd have to work his way back towards another title fight. He completed the first step on that journey when he got a first-round knockout of Rafael Silva last February in Jakarta, and he's in prime position to finalize his return to that position against Svirid. He's also won his last 8 fights (excluding the no-contest), all of them finishes, including seven knockouts (two of them in under 30-seconds and another two in under a minute), some of them over fighters like TUF contestant Shamar Bailey, and Alfredo Morales, Dave Courchaine and Bakkhyitar Abbasov, who held a combined respectable record of 39-10 going into the fights with Sapo (Courchaine in particular was on an 8-fight winning streak with 6 finishes going into the fight, including victories over Ron Jhun and Lloyd Woodard.) Sapo also holds victories over Daniel Acacio, Dan Hornbuckle, Ivan Jorge, Jorge Patino, Ildemar Alcantara, and a slough of other fighters.

Igor Svirid was a heavy underdog going into the title-fight with Leandro Ataides, with many people viewing him as a gimme and another example of ONE giving EVOLVE fighters easy, non-challenging fights. Then those people retroactively changed history and acted like Igor was always some extremely tough prospect that was clearly going to give an EVOLVE fighter problems once he KO'd Ataides in under 20-seconds. He made the first defense of his middleweight title last November in Malaysia against current champion Vitaly Bigdash in a Round of the Year contender and arguably the greatest fight that ONE's ever put on. Svirid, a Kazakhstani fighter and a Sambist, is known best for the fight with Bigdash, but after that for his punching power. One of the secrets to his power is that he always punches up; punches that travel upwards are stronger than punches that go downwards, and Svirid's always sure to punch going upwards.
He said he was planning on dropping down to welterweight shortly after the fight with Bigdash, having stated that he apparently walked around at under 190 going into the title defense, and with his exciting fighting style and status as a former champion of the organization, he's en route to get a quick chance at another title if he defeats Sapo.
Svirid has an official record of 10-2 with 7 finishes, but he's apparently has a lot more experience than his record would indicate in unsanctioned fights (which isn't too surprising, since he's from central Asia), so both of these fighters are well-traveled veterans with a wealth of experience to their credits.
The loser of this fight could also only be another two or three wins away from getting a title shot, so the future's still bright for these competitors no matter what happens... as long as Sapo makes weight, that is.

In the co-main event, Marcin Prachnio is fighting EVOLVE contender Jake Butler in a fight that could very well decide the next contender for the middleweight title.
Marcin Prachnio's a Polish Karatéka who holds an 11-2 record. He made his debut in ONE at heavyweight against Alexandre Machado, who outweighed him by, like, 30 pounds and whom he knocked out in the first round. He followed that up by decisioning Leandro Ataides at ONE's inaugural event in Thailand last May, using his Karaté to full effect, landing lots of kicks from various angles along with utilizing great movement, balance and a lot of stance switches. He's finished all but three of his victories by knockout and only two by decision.
Jake Butler was the Princeton University's wrestling team captain and a stockbroker on Wall Street before he decided to abandon his money-making endeavors and pursue his true passion: athletic competition. He moved to Singapore to train at EVOLVE to accomplish this goal, debuting with ONE soon afterwards and amassing a 7-1 record in that time. A strong wrestler who's won most of his fights because of his wrasslin' skills, an interesting feature about him is that he's improved his striking immensely since his debut-- no doubt due in large part to the gigantic amount of Muay Thai champions who teach at EVOLVE.
His last three victories have been the most impressive parts of his career so far; he avenged his first professional loss to Sylvain Potard (a powerhouse French Jūdōka), Cristiano Kamanishi (a former HEAT and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion) and, most recently, DREAM light-heavyweight grand prix runner-up Tatsuya Mizuno. The Sylvain Potard fight in particular was impressive in how he defeated him. Potard's a French Jūdōka, and, if you don't know, France is known for having, along with Japan, the best Jūdō circuit in the world, having dominated the heavyweight division in the sport for decades now. This makes being a French Jūdōka a very notable quality (makes them very tough to take- and keep down), and Potard's a very strong Frenchman in particular, and Butler managed to take him down and control him on the ground with ease throughout the majority of the fight. Including a near-finish in the first-round from the amount of ground strikes that Butler had landed. He also showed a lot of heart by continuing to fight after he'd gassed badly in the third round.
After announcing that he was planning to drop to middleweight, he was rumored to receive an immediate title-shot, but he'll have to settle with getting a bout for a shot near the title.
Depending on what happens with Aung La N Sang's rumored upcoming middleweight title fight in October in Myanmar, the winner of this fight could end up fighting the winner of Aung La N Sang and Vitaly Bigdash or, if Bigdash is unable to fight, could end up fighting Aung for a title-shot (or even an interim title.) Or could even leapfrog Aung if he gets injured. Regardless of what happens, the winner of this fight's gonna be in a very good position in the title picture.

Vincent Latoel's a Dutch-Indonesian fighter who lives and trains in Indonesia now and is one of the most popular Indonesian fighters that ONE has. While his 16-17-2 record may not be too impressive to some people, he's a lot better than his record says, and he's a lot more entertaining than records show. A lot of his losses have also come against great fighters; Daniel Weichel, Tom Niinimaki, Willamy Friere, Eduard Folayang, Caros Fodor, Kotetsu Boku, Adrian Pang. Only four of the fights in his 35-fight career have gone the distance, so he's a real finisher no matter on which end he receives, and his Dutch roots have given him very good kickboxing-- his strongest weapon and the tool that's led him to victory in his last two victories against Arnaud Lepont and Eddie Ng.
He's also got a good guillotine choke, having earned five victories with it.
Edward Kelly, the younger brother of featherweight contender Eric Kelly, is an accomplished Wushu fighter training out of Team Lakay who went from also-fighting-in-the-promotion to contender in his last fight. After going 5-0 between 2007 and 2013, he made his debut with ONE and got submitted by featherweight contender Herbert Burns in under a minute, and then went 1-2 over his next three fights, defeating Jimmy Yabo and losing to other featherweight contenders Ev Ting and Martin Nguyen. Then, last March in Myanmar on arguably ONE's most entertaining card ever, he fought the then-8-0 former Brace champion Jordan Lucas-- a heavy favorite-- and submitted Lucas with a hookless rear-choke in the first round in an entertaining come-from-behind victory. That victory sent Kelly immediately from also-ran to contender status, and he'll look to solidify his status against local favorite Latoel.

Anthony Engelen's another Dutch-Indonesian fighter who lives and trains in Indonesia. A skilled grappler, he holds a 4-2 record and a 1-2 record in ONE. He unofficially co-main evented the last ONE card in Indonesia, where he submitted Rocky Batolbatol in the first round. He last fought in Myanmar against arguably the top prospect in all of Southeast-Asia, Christian Lee, getting knocked out in the first round.
Sami Amin is an Egyptian fighter who holds a 5-3 record. He was the Egyptian Fighting Championship champion when he made his debut with ONE in 2014, losing via submission to Fransino Tirta. He last fought in Malaysia last January against Samir Mrabet, losing via submission in the second round. An Egyptian Top Team fighter, he's another in the list of Egyptian Top Team members who've signed with- and lost in ONE (I think someone did a tally on here and found that they have something like a combined 1-15 record in ONE), the motivation to upset the local favorite and break his country- and team's losing streak will be on.

Popular Indonesian fighter Sunoto is a kickboxer who holds a 4-2 record and a 2-2 record in ONE. He unofficially main-evented ONE's 2015 Jakarta card, earning his first victory in ONE over Mario Satya Wirawan in a bantamweight match. He last fought against Bernard Soriano, knocking him out in the first round in Manila last April.
In arguably the biggest challenge of Sunoto's career, he's fighting Indonesian veteran Yohan Mulia Legowo. A veteran of the very active TPIFC organization in Indonesia in the early-2000's and of Legend FC, Mulia Legowo holds an official record of 8-4 with a 100% finishing rate. He made his debut with Legend in 2010 after six years away from competition (at least officially), winning via submission against the then-8-1 Hardeep Singh, and later made his debut with ONE in 2014 after three years away from competition (again, at least officially), losing to Ev Ting. He fought on the last ONE card in Jakarta in February, defeating Mario Satya Wirawan via submission in the first round. An interesting thing is that all of his losses have come against very good fighters; Indonesian great Fransino Tirta, former ROAD FC champion and former top-15 flyweight Jo Nam-Jin, current ONE contender Ev Ting, and EVOLVE prospect Benedict Ang.

Mario Satya Wirawan is an Indonesian fighter who gained a lot of popularity as a good University soccer player in Indonesia who decided to pursue a career in professional fighting. He made his debut with ONE in 2015 with a 4-1 record in the unofficial main event of the Odyssey of Champions card in Jakarta against Sunoto. He lost the fight by unanimous decision, but made history in his next fight when he secured a 6-second KO in Cambodia in the fastest knockout in ONE history. He lost via submission against the aforementioned Yohan Mulia Legowo last January, and he's looking to bounce back against URCC veteran Bernard Soriano.

 

Thanks @eseseses681 the title fight should be fun, although it has me a bit disappointed as I was hoping for Sapo vs Askren.

Any idea on who Askren could fight next with these two locked up? Thanks for all of your writeups.

 

Just for the record, i think Titans and Titles sounds better.

Was there live for the first Butler/Potard fight. Butler's striking wasn't very impressive then. I was telling my buddy the whole fight that Potard was loading up and waiting for Butler to enter his shorter range... 5 secs later he gets KO'd. The rematch was just okay.

I think Prachino has beat better competition than him so I'm giving it to Prachino.

 

Good write up man, I like ONE they need more talent in the heavier weight classes though. That's one of my only complaints. I really like Butler vs Prachnio, tough fight for both guys. The winner should get the next title shot.

 

Sapo should be fighting Askren at this point and Svirid should fight La Nsang or some other (I'm confused with all the weight change policies) to be the next in line

 

Lol don't be surprise if one fc cancel this fkin event like how they always do!
The main event is good but the rest of the card, I give it a 4.8-10.

 

They should just quit naming their events. Too similar, too corny.

 

I like One and all but I feel like it's rare they have more than 2 fights on a card that excite me these days.

 

They have cancelled a few but i dont think theyve cancelled events that have an announced fight lineup.

The ones they cancel seem to be less than a month away with zero announced fights.

 

They have
http://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/events/28779-one-fc-26-odyssey-of-champions
http://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/events/34168-one-fc-30-dynasty-of-champions

Looking forward to their event next week, not so much this one. They are due for a stacked card soon, those Thailand and Singapore events were back in May so most of those guys should be ready for a fight soon (a few of them already have fights).

 

They did cancel events before with fights accounce. One of the ones I remember that got cancel was Jens puler vs Francisco tirta in Indonesia around 2014 I think.

 

Not bad, though I'm still waiting for Bigdash to fight again.

 

If they don't bring someone in or he doesn't take a fight for fun in a different division (like Aoki did that one time), he may end up fighting the winner of Sapo-Svirid by November or December. They save Askren for their big cards in Singapore or Manila, or select other places, so a November-December date for the winner isn't too implausible. If they manage to go all-out and bring in Rory Macdonald, you can guess who Askren'll fight next.
And thanks for the compliment.

Svirid's dropping down to welterweight-- he apparently walks around at less than 190. So a fight with Aung La N Sang ain't gonna happen unless Aung decides to drop down to welterweight, too (and he walks around at over 205 pounds and basically just earned a title shot at middleweight, so that's unlikely.) They're also still tentative about Sapo's reliability since he basically fucked their card in Singapore last November, so they've gotta be sure he won't do anything like that again. Hence why he's fighting Svirid in what's basically a title-eliminator.

To be fair, those cards were both under extenuating political circumstances. Indonesia banned shootfighting for a while shortly before that card, and there was a two-week military holiday that prevented the Shanghai card from happening. Stuff like that happens in Asia occasionally. If the UFC scheduled a card in Indonesia or Shanghai at the same time, the same thing would've happened (there's a reason the UFC hasn't touched mainland China or the areas of southeast-Asia that aren't extremely stable-- Singapore and Manila.)
And they're gonna save most of the guys on their Thailand and Singapore cards for their cards in Thailand and Singapore. It's kind of a waste to have Dejdamrong or Angela Lee fight outside of Thailand and Singapore when that's where they're most valuable.
More fights are also gonna be added to this one, so this card may end up looking a bit better.
I'm also excited for the Edward Kelly fight. His fight with Jordan Lucas made me a fan.

It's rumored that Bigdash is going to fight Aung La N Sang in Myanmar in October. Aung submitted Butorin-- the guy that Bigdash was supposed to fight in May before Vitaly got injured-- last month, so he's basically the #1 contender now. That's pretty much what's gonna happen if neither of them are injured by then.

 

Just got free tickets for this through my fiance who works for the tv network who airs it. Its a small arena but apparently they are still giving away a lot of free tickets to the general public too.

Im excited though, main event is guaranteed fireworks and this will be my 5th ONE event, I'm yet to be disappointed by the fights (biggest disappointment was sapo vs askren 2 getting cancelled on the day of the fight!)