ONE Fighting Championship

It’s been two months since we last updated out Fighter Rankings and our error has resulted in plenty of changes to the top five-spot in many weight classes. Fighters moving around in weight classes, upsets and some impressive all played a part in the November Fighter Rankings.

Inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium ONE FC crowned a new lightweight champion as the submission specialist Shinya Aoki defeated Kotetsu Boku. Aoki (33-6, 1NC) displayed his superior grappling against the powerful Boku to add another belt to his collect via second round submission. The win was the third in a row for Aoki and 22nd career submission victory.

The month has changes to April and things will begin to pick up this month with loads of MMA action over the next couple weeks. Last week saw Bellator hold down the fort for mainstream MMA, while TUF 17 entered the quarterfinals with two fighters advancing to the semifinals.

This week in MMA was absent of a UFC event as the promotion geared up for UFC 159. The highly anticipated welterweight championship main event between Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz had fans and media buzzing last week after the explosive pre-fight conference call that Diaz took over.

The April 5th ONE FC event to be held in Singapore will be headlined by a lightweight world championship bout between current champion Kotetsu Boku taking on the Dream lightweight champion Shinya Aoki. Their bout was announced today by the quick rising Asian Mixed Martial Arts Promotion.

This week in MMA saw the first TUF 17 fighter advance; Bellator opened its lightweight tournament and Jose Aldo defended his UFC featherweight title. But as you’ll see by the links in this week’s Independent link club, there was more to the week then just that.

This week’s MMA link club centers on the women of Mixed Martial Arts. With Ronda Rousey making her UFC debut next month she has an even bigger target on her back these days. It’s not just Rousey though, inside or outside the cage, women’s MMA is getting a lot of attention.

This weekend was caulk full of MMA, offering up multiple high-profile events taking place on both Friday and Saturday. The UFC, Bellator, ONE FC and Invicta FC all held event this weekend, but so did UCMMA, CES MMA and Superior Challenge.