BUZZ over ONE Championship’s landmark event in Japan — “ONE: Century” — next month entered a new phase with Asia’s largest sports media property holding a media day on Tuesday at Park Hyatt in Shinjuku in Tokyo.

Present at media day were ONE officials, including ONE Championship Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong, ONE Esports CEO Carlos Alimurung and President of ONE Championship Japan Andy Hata.

Also in attendance were some of the athletes seeing action in the two-prong ONE: Century offering happening on Oct. 13 at the historic Ryogoku Kokugikan.

Century will feature 22 match-ups, split into two shows of 11 fights.

The matches will feature five Filipinos, two of which are fighting for world titles and one for a grand prix belt.

Part One of Century will be headlined by the atomweight world championship fight between reigning champion Angela “The Unstoppable” Lee and challenger and women’s strawweight champ “The Panda” Xiong Jing Nan of China.

Co-main events are the world grand prix finals in the flyweight and lightweight divisions.

Flyweight will have mixed martial arts legend Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson against Filipino fighter Danny “The King” Kingad.

In the lightweight division, meanwhile, it will be between Eddie “The Underground King” Alvarez of the United States and Saygid “Dagi” Guseyn Arslanaliev of Turkey.

Supporting Part One of Century are eight top-notch preliminary fights, including that of Team Lakay strawweight Lito “Thunder Kid” Adiwang against Japanese Senzo Ikeda.

Part One of Century is the scheduled in the morning and will be broadcast on TNT in the United States.

The second fold of the historic ONE Tokyo event, meanwhile, which will air live across 140-plus countries in the evening, is bannered by the light heavyweight clash of champion Aung La “The Burmese Python” N Sang of Myanmar against ONE heavyweight champion Brandon “The Truth” Vera of the Philippines.

Under the N Sang-Vera battle are three world-class co-main events led by the world bantamweight championship fight between reigning champion Bibiano “The Flash” Fernandes of Brazil and former champ Kevin “The Silencer” Belingon of the Philippines.

The flyweight muay thai world championship fight between champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon of Thailand and Walter Goncalves of Brazil as well as the featherweight kickboxing world grand prix championship final between Italy’s Giorgio Petrosyan and France’s Samy Sana are the two other co-main events.

Filipino Honorio “The Rock” Banario is part of the main card, fighting Japanese legend and former ONE lightweight champion Shinya Aoki.

Also included in Part Two of Century are champion versus champion fights from MMA organizations Shooto and Pancrase. In the lead-up to the ONE: Century, the promotion will also hold esports competitions, namely, the ONE Tekken Tokyo Invitational and the ONE Street Fighter Tokyo Challenge, on Oct. 5 to 6, adding further dimension to it as a group and complementing its standing as “Home of Martial Arts.”

“ONE Championship aims to bring the spirit of martial arts back to Japan with our historic 100th live event. I am extremely grateful to have the support of the best Japanese athletes in the world, and the Japanese people… As a company, our impact on society is enormous. We take this responsibility very seriously,” said Mr. Sityodtong at media day, underscoring their thrust as a group and vision moving forward. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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