By:  | August 17, 2023 2:54 pm

An openweight grappling bout has been added to the ONE Fight Night 15 card. Mikey Musumeci will be facing Shinya Aoki in a bout that pits one of the promotion’s rising stars against one of it’s most experienced fighters.

Aoki will be competing for the first time in nearly a year. The 40 year old’s last foray into the world of submission grappling ended with a decision loss to Tye Ruotolo.

But Aoki is the former ONE Championship lightweight champion in MMA and a BJJ black belt who probably outweighs his opponent by around 40lbs.

Musumeci competes at flyweight and clearly has no difficulty making the limit. He is the promotion’s reigning submission grappling champion in the division and has won five fights out of five for ONE Championship.

All Thai

As previously announced  Tawanchai PKSaenchaigym will be putting his featherweight Muay Thai title on the line at ONE Fight Night 15. He faces fellow Thai Superbon Banchamek on October 7th.

While Superbon has been focused on kickboxing for the past seven years Tawanchai is one of the top pound for pound Muay Thai fighters in the world. He has beaten some of the biggest names in the division and been on a particularly impressive run of his own with ONE Championship.

Tawanchai will be making the second defence of the title he won last year. Meanwhile Superbon went on an incredible run that saw him beat Sittichai Sitsongpeenong, Giorgio Petrosyan and Marat Grigorian.

Two champions

Fabricio Andrade and Jonathan Haggerty will meet in a bantamweight kickboxing title fight in Bangkok on October 6th. The fight was announced by Chatri Sityodtong earlier today.

The belt is vacant because former champion Petchtanong Banchamek was stripped of the title after failing a drug test. Both Andrade and Haggerty were crowned as champions in different sports earlier this year.

Andrade won the bantamweight MMA belt after stopping John Lineker at ONE Fight Night 6. He has yet to defend that title but has plenty of kickboxing experience and fought ten times for Kunlun Fight.

Haggerty became the bantamweight Muay Thai champion when he stopped Nong-O Gaiyanghadao at ONE Fight Night 6. He had previously held the flyweight belt but doesn’t appear to have any kickboxing experience.

Two lightweights

Timofey Nastyukhin and Lipeng Zhang will go head to head at ONE Fight Night 15. The two lightweights will go head to head in Bangkok on October 7th.

Nastyukhin (14-7) burst onto the scene by knocking out Eduard Folayang in 2014. He also finished Eddie Alvarez on the former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion’s ONE Championship debut in 2019.

But he has fallen on hard times and has been stopped in each of his last three outings. He is coming off TKO losses a the hands of Halil Amir, Saygid Arslanaliev and Christian Lee.

Zhang (33-12-2) also holds a win over Folayang although the Filipino was already fading by the time they fought in 2021. The former Kunlun lightweight champion has two losses and one win from his three ONE Championship fights.

 

Flyweight fight

Meanwhile another big bout has been added to the ONE Fight Night 15 card according to reports in the Philippines. Flyweights Danny Kingad and Hu Yong will face off in Bangkok on October 7th.

Kingad is a former flyweight title challenger and is currently ranked #3. With #2 ranked Kairat Akhmetov serving a drug ban he could move into immediate title contention with a win here.

Yong will be looking to secure a spot in the rankings for the first time. He is coming off back to back wins and holds a victory over Kingad’s Team Lakay training partner Geje Eustaquio.

ONE Fight Night 15, Bangkok, October 6th
Kickboxing: Jonathan Haggerty vs. Fabricio Andrade (For vacant bantamweight belt)
Muay Thai: Tawanchai PKSaenchaigym (c) vs. Superbon Banchamek (For featherweight belt)
Danny Kingad vs. Hu Yong (Flyweight)
Mikey Musumeci vs. Shinya Aoki (Openweight)
Timofey Nastyukhin vs. Lipeng Zhang (Lightweight)