ONE Championship 163: Petchtanong claims kickboxing gold with split win over Hiroki Akimoto
- ONE 163 went down on Saturday inside Singapore Indoor Stadium, just hours after the conclusion of the morning’s ONE on Prime Video 4 card
- Petchtanong dethrones bantamweight kickboxing champ Hiroki Akimoto in the main event, while Aung La N Sang picked up a quick win over Yushin Okami
Hours after the conclusion of Saturday morning’s ONE Championship on Prime Video 4 event in Singapore, the martial arts promotion returned with ONE 163, also at Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The card was topped by a bantamweight kickboxing title fight between Japanese champion Hiroki Akimoto, and Petchtanong Petchfergus of Thailand. Petchtanong, one of the most experienced fighters in combat sports, won the title by split decision.
Kickboxing also took centre stage in the evening’s co-main event, as Ukrainian light heavyweight champion Roman Kryklia defeated Iran’s Iraj Azizpour by second-round knockout to win ONE’s heavyweight kickboxing Grand Prix.
Earlier on the card, Khabib Nurmagomedov protégé Saygid Izagakhmaev burst into lightweight MMA title contention with a quick TKO win over Japanese legend Shinya Aoki.
Burmese-American Aung La N Sang, a former two-division MMA champ, also won big on the card, with a quick knockout of Yushin Okami at middleweight.
Follow along here for blow-by-blow coverage of the action in Singapore.