“I’ll have to check with my wife,” he said in the Circle after being grilled about whether this was indeed his final fling in the world of mixed martial arts.

But a post-fight staredown with Kairat Akhmetov, who had himself taken a decision earlier in the night against Australia’s Reece McLaren, suggested that Johnson still has unfinished business in the promotion before he can walk off into the sunset.

The Singapore-based martial arts promotion’s marquee name in the US, former UFC champion Johnson’s victory put the icing on the cake after a night that had built to a crescendo before the highly-anticipated main event.

Johnson’s win was perfectly teed up by a couple of star-making performances – to US audiences at least – from the two Thailand icons on the card, Stamp Fairtex and the flyweight Muay Thai champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon.

“I believe in my skill set and my brand and myself,” 36-year-old Johnson told the Post at the post-event press conference. “They pay me to fight and every single time I give it my all.

“I didn’t get the finish but I showed a lot of good work. I knew I would go out there and put on a great fight, and I think Rodtang killed it too, and all the athletes tonight did a great job.”

First, former ONE atomweight kickboxing and Muay Thai champion Stamp had danced her way into the hearts of the crowd of 3,500 with her signature walkout, before crumpling American Alyse Anderson to the canvas with a vicious second-round body shot KO.

“Give me my belt,” she told commentator Mitch Chilson with a smile in the cage, after picking up a US$50,000 bonus from CEO and chairman Chatri Sityodtong.

The 25-year-old – ranked No 1 in the atomweight MMA division – also earned herself an interim title shot against South Korean veteran Ham Seo-hee.

The division’s champion Angela Lee – who beat Stamp via second-round submission last year to defend her title – is out of action indefinitely following the death of her sister and fellow ONE fighter Victoria Lee at 18.

“I will leave it up to Chatri and I’m ready any time,” Stamp said following her win at the press conference, after being asked when she would like to face the No 2-ranked Ham.

“Angela Lee was much tougher, the toughest opponent I have faced.”

Despite her opponent supposedly having the home advantage, Thailand’s Stamp was cheered raucously from the first bell and showed off her increasingly sharp ground game to nullify Anderson’s submission attempts.

“I was very surprised and very inspired when the crowd was going crazy when I came out, it gave me so much energy to perform,” she added.

But even Stamp’s burgeoning popularity with the American crowd was blown out of the water when Rodtang stepped onto the stage for a title defence against Mexico’s Edgar Tabares, who was looking to cause a huge upset on his country’s national holiday, Cinco De Mayo.

The 25-year-old “Iron Man” had the crowd eating out of his hand as he also danced his way to the cage.

After a chastening week where his professionalism – as well as his ability to make weight – had been questioned having arrived relatively late without acclimating to the high altitude, Rodtang delivered a stunning rebuke to his doubters.

The flyweight king ended Tabares’ night with a vicious check elbow, before embarking on a victory lap as he soaked up the crowd’s adulation.

He earned a double performance bonus equating to US$100,000, and then climbed over the guardrail into the stands to truly feel the love being showered upon him.

The fans even began chanting his name en masse when he tried to quietly step between the curtain to watch Johnson’s match against Moraes.

“I was shocked and had no idea the American fans would react that way, and that I already had a fan base in America,” Rodtang said at the press conference. “I’m just very grateful. I never thought as a child struggling in poverty I would be here.”

ONE perhaps could not have written a better script for the evening – even a shock loss for highly-touted new signing Roberto Soldic did not detract from the occasion.

The former welterweight MMA champion Zebaztian Kadestam’s stunning second-round KO victory over the Croatian striking sensation instead added to the drama, and he too was awarded US$50,000 before hobbling to the back and into an ambulance, where he was transported to hospital having broken his foot.

“I said it was kill or be killed. One of us was going to sleep, and I didn’t care who,” he later told the Post at the Hyatt Place hotel.

Burmese-American Aung La N Sang had earlier added to the feel-good factor with a crowd-pleasing submission win over China’s Fan Rong.

The former two-division MMA champ had racked up his third straight victory, as he continues to knock on the door for another crack at middleweight king Reinier de Ridder – whose head hung low after a defeat by 20-year-old jiu-jitsu phenom Tye Ruotolo in their catchweight submission grappling contest on Friday.

Filipino-American Jackie Buntan had got the main card off to the perfect start with a first-round knockout of Australia’s Diandra Martin, a finish that would certainly have earned her a bonus had she not missed weight.

In the third fight from the top of the card, America’s Mikey Musumeci had garnered the biggest crowd reaction for a grappling match in ONE since the promotion started hosting them last year, choking out Yemen’s Osamah Almarwai late on for a huge pop.

“I thought the energy from the crowd was amazing, it definitely was exciting,” he said. “I was so nervous because submission grappling can be boring for viewers if they don’t know what it is, so I just wanted to make sure fans could appreciate it the way they do other martial arts on the card.”

ONE will surely be back in Denver soon enough, after a night that was a roaring success on all fronts. It had been years in the making, stalled by the pandemic, but was ultimately more than worth the wait.