ONE Championship: Itsuki Hirata’s illness leaves seemingly-cursed atomweight grand prix reeling, again
- Japanese star becomes the second fighter to withdraw from semi-finals, after coming down with a high fever
- Jenelyn Olsim steps in to face Ritu Phogat in Singapore, in latest dramatic change-up to a tournament beset with delays and bad lack
ONE Championship simply can’t catch a break when it comes to its seemingly-cursed atomweight grand prix.
The latest in a long line of blows to hit the eight-woman tournament? Itsuki Hirata has withdrawn from her semi-final against Ritu Phogat, which was set for Friday night’s ONE NextGen card in Singapore.
The 22-year-old Japanese star (5-0) returned a negative PCR test for Covid-19 on Monday, but said she had a high fever and couldn’t even walk.
“I’m truly sorry to Ritu Phogat, sponsors, fans who supported me, and ONE staff,” Hirata wrote on her Instagram and Twitter accounts. “I’m grateful to have been selected for this tournament, even though I didn’t have a good enough career or record compared to others.
“I fought hard to be in the semi-finals. It is regretful that I have to pull out at this stage and disappoint many people. I will recover and be back in [the] ONE Circle as soon as possible. Thank you.”
The natural move would’ve been to slot Denice Zamboanga (8-1) straight back in for a semi-final against Stamp Fairtex, given the controversy caused by Ham’s split decision win last month.
But the No 1-ranked Filipino is also still nursing an injury – a huge forehead gash suffered during a clash of heads with Ham – and won’t be cleared to return until later this year.
That saw Julie Mezabarba (9-21) called up, after the Brazilian dispatched Japanese veteran Mei Yamaguchi on the undercard of the quarter-finals, to earn an alternate slot.
Team Lakay’s Jenelyn Olsim and Malaysia’s Jihin Radzuan were also set to duke it out in a fresh alternate bout on Friday, but those plans have been ripped up with Olsim (5-2) now thrown straight in at the deep end against Phogat (6-1).
An early 2021 start date was targeted, but negotiations to sign American Alyse Anderson (5-2) from Invicta FC held things up. “Unstoppable” Lee would go on to give birth in April, long before the first-round matches, which were originally scheduled for May, before a rise of Covid-19 cases in Singapore put the all-female Empower card back to September.
With Lee set to defend her title against the grand prix winner in February 2022, the semi-finalists faced a seven-week turnaround going into this week’s event, with an even shorter stretch ahead for the final on December 5.
Fans were able to vote for their favoured semi-final line-up, too, something which has now also been rendered meaningless, with voting closing even before Ham had dropped out.
ONE must be wondering how it has so angered the MMA gods, after its men’s lightweight grand prix was similarly beset by injuries and bad luck in 2019 – and that was even before the era of Covid-19.
Christian Lee had to jump in on short notice to save that tournament’s Tokyo final, in a fight originally designed to determine the next challenger for his own belt.
And who could rule out seeing his sister being drafted in to do similar at the ONE X 10th anniversary show, if there are yet more injuries?
One thing is clear – this is probably not the end of the drama, if the history of MMA tournaments has shown us anything.
