ONE Championship 118 is now official for Oct. 30, and four championship fights headline the card.
ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong recently revealed the promotion’s plans, though he declined to name a location for the behind-closed-doors event, which will stream live on B/R Live.
In the night’s main event, two-division champion Aung La N Sang (26-10) puts his light heavyweight title on the line against undefeated Dutch challenger Reinier de Ridder (12-0).
Additionally, welterweight title holder Christian Lee (13-3) puts his belt on the line against undefeated challenger Iuri Lapicus (14-0), lightweight champion Martin Nguyen (13-3) faces “The Ultimate Fighter 22” cast member Thanh Le (11-2), and women’s flyweight champ Jing Nan Xiong (14-2) faces Tiffany Teo (9-1).
Additional fights are expected to be announced shortly.
“You know, I hate to sound trite but the show must go on, and what I have learned personally is that my team at ONE Championship, the resilience, the passion, the excellence, has far exceeded my expectations,” Sityodtong said on a recent media call promoting the event. “I will tell you that the morale internally in ONE Championship is at all-time high. People are just fired up.
“I always say that in crisis, you really discover who you are as a person, who you are as an individual, and as a team, and one quote that comes to mind, always is, you know, ‘Ships are not made for the calm waters of the harbor, ships are made for the rough seas in search of new horizons,’ and, ‘Great captains are made in rough seas, never in the calm of the harbor.’ That’s why I said, you know, I think, I genuinely believe that the best companies in the world will not only survive, they will thrive in the same way ONE Championship is thriving in this environment. The show must go on.”
ONE Championship hasn’t hosted a title fight since January’s ONE Championship 107 event in the Philippines.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced ONE Championship officials to halt live events from March until late July, when the company set up shop for a string of six fight cards in Thailand.
Ahead of the Oct. 30 event, the promotion will host two cards in Singapore, starting with Friday’s “ONE Championship 116: Reign of Dynasties,” which streams on B/R Live.
The lineup for “ONE Championship 118: Inside the Matrix” currently includes:
- Champ Aung La N Sang vs. Reinier de Ridder – for light heavyweight title
- Champ Christian Lee vs. Iuri Lapicus – for welterweight title
- Champ Martin Nguyen vs. Thanh Le – for lightweight title
- Champ Jing Nan Xiong vs. Tiffany Teo – for women’s flyweight title
- Antonio Caruso vs. Eduard Folayang