ONE Championship

Flyweight legend Demetrious Johnson announced his retirement from MMA on Friday at ONE 168.

An emotional Johnson said goodbye to the sport and became the first inductee into ONE Championship's Hall of Fame.

The 38-year-old leaves with a professional record of 25-4-1. His last fight saw him take the rubber match against Adriano Moraes by unanimous decision in May 2023.

Johnson is widely regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in modern MMA history.

He made his pro debut in 2009 and signed with UFC in 2011. By 2012, he was crowned as the inaugural flyweight champion after beating Ian McCall and then Joseph Benavidez in a four-man tournament.

Johnson proceeded to put UFC's flyweight division in a metaphorical chokehold. He successfully defended his title in 11 straight fights, breaking Anderson Silva's record.

Henry Cejudo finally brought Johnson's streak to an end, winning a split decision at UFC 227 in August 2018 to become the new flyweight champion.

Johnson joined ONE Championship later that year in what amounted to a trade sending Ben Askren the other way to the UFC. He beat Yuya Wakamatsu by submission in his first ONE fight in March 2019. While his first crack at ONE's flyweight belt was unsuccessful, resulting in a knockout loss to Moraes in 2021, he avenged the defeat in 2022.

Johnson's retirement means ONE needs a new flyweight champion with the title now vacated.

Former ONE Championship title challenger Iuri Lapicus died Monday in Italy at the age of 27 from injuries he suffered in a motorcycle accident last week, per ESPN's Marc Raimondi.

Milano Today reported that Lapicus crashed his motorcycle into a vehicle driven by a 69-year-old woman in northwest Milan on Friday. He was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in the city, and he remained in a coma until Monday.

"The ONE Championship team is heartbroken over the tragic passing of Iuri Lapicus," the promotion wrote in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his loved ones at this difficult time."

Born in Moldova and residing in Italy, Lapicus started his MMA career with 14 straight wins. After joining ONE Championship in 2019, he notched back-to-back submission victories before earning a title shot against 170-pound champion Christian Lee.

After a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lapicus challenged for the title in late 2020 but suffered the first loss of his career when Lee stopped him via first-round TKO. He later lost to former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, but Alvarez was disqualified for punches to the back of the head and the fight was ruled a no-contest.

In his last appearance for ONE this past August, Lapicus was knocked out in the first round by Zebaztian Kadestam.

After spending well over a decade competing for world titles and battling through grueling grand prix tournaments in the UFC and ONE Championship, Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson has earned the opportunity to have a little fun.

That's just what he'll get in his next fight.

The ONE flyweight grand prix winner and 12-time UFC champ will return to action at ONE X on Saturday evening in Singapore (Saturday morning stateside) when he will take on the promotion's reigning flyweight muay thai champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon in a headline-catching hybrid fight that will alternate between muay thai and MMA rules over the course of four three-minute rounds.

"It's about having fun and going out there to compete," Johnson told Bleacher Report inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium, where Saturday's 20-fight ONE X bonanza will go down. "The challenges are always fun. I just think with this one, fighting against a guy like Rodtang, it's going to be difficult, but at the same time it's going to be fun."

Some may question Johnson's definition of fun.

At just 24, Thailand's Rodtang has competed in well over 300 fights and won at least 267 of them, though muay thai records tend to be difficult to verify. He's known as one of the best fighters in the sport, as evidenced by the ONE title belt that sits in his trophy case. Perhaps more importantly, he's one of the most exciting fighters in combat sports. He is brutality incarnate. A walking, talking chainsaw.

Johnson's ability to win the fight seemingly hinges on surviving the first round, which will be contested under muay thai rules. He recognizes the scale of that challenge but is hopeful his experience fighting strikers in MMA will carry him through.

"I've fought strikers before," he said.

"I've been in fights where it's pretty much only stand-up. When I fought Henry Cejudo the second time, it was pretty much all stand-up. Granted, Cejudo doesn't have the caliber of standup or muay thai as Rodtang, but the fight was pretty much on the feet."

"When I fought John Dodson, I got dropped three times in the first round and I fought back and won that fight," he said. "I'm sure Rodtang's going to hit just as hard—maybe a little harder."

If Johnson can survive the first round, the tables will turn abruptly in his favor, as he will then have three minutes to ply his wrestling and jiu-jitsu against Rodtang—who has only been studying the grappling side of the sport for a few years—before the fight reverts back to muay thai rules in Round 3.

Like Johnson, Rodtang is well aware of the danger he'll face when the fight switches to his less favored ruleset. Still, he said there was no hesitation to accept the fight when ONE sent him the offer.

"I've never been in MMA before, so when [ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong] explained the rules, I said yes right away," the Thai juggernaut said.

"I'm a fighter. When you have an opportunity, you cannot say no. When you say no, you'll continue to say no. You'll never step up to challenge yourself. I want to challenge myself. I want to step up. I want to prove I can do it."

Special-rules fights are a rare occurrence in combat sports, but there is precedent. Many of the best examples of this kind of attraction have occurred on the Asian scene.

Perhaps the best example of the bunch occurred at the legendary Dynamite!! 2010 event inside the Saitama Super Arena outside Tokyo, when Japanese grappling specialist Shinya Aoki—who coincidentally fights Yoshihiro Akiyama on the ONE X card—met K-1 kickboxer Yuichiro Nagashima in a bout that alternated between kickboxing and MMA rules.

Like Johnson's, Aoki's chances of victory seemed to hinge on his surviving until the second round, when he would be allowed to get to work with his wrestling and jiu-jitsu. Yet as anybody who watched this iconic event knows, that's not quite how things went down. Aoki used an ugly, boo-inducing combination of clinching and intentionally falling to the ground to survive Round 1 only to be knocked out by a flying knee on his first takedown attempt in Round 2.

Johnson is keen to avoid that kind of humiliation against Rodtang but does take some pride in continuing Asia's tradition of special-rules fights.

"I guess you could say I'm carrying on a tradition," he said when asked about Aoki's infamous loss to Nagashima. "I think ONE Championship is carrying on a tradition. For me, I'm always looking for mixed martial arts because that's my bread and butter. I like the full evolution of a fight. But hats off to ONE Championship for keeping the tradition alive."

While Johnson is excited for the opportunity to have a bit of fun against Rodtang—and keep a time-honored tradition alive in the process—he is not taking the challenge lightly whatsoever. Particularly in the final stages of his illustrious career.

"It's going to be f--king chaotic," he said. "I take every fight seriously because it could be my last."

In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was first beginning to make its presence felt, ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong called a meeting with his team and emphasized the importance of creativity and resilience in an increasingly uncertain climate.

Well over a year later—and after plenty of creativity and even more resilience—the Singapore-based martial arts promotion is not only surviving the pandemic but thriving in spite of it. 

Sityodtong, who knows as well as anyone how devastating the pandemic has been for business the world over, is grateful for what his team has been able to accomplish.

"We've hit record viewership numbers throughout the pandemic," Sityodtong told Bleacher Report, citing a Nielsen Sports study that identified ONE Championship as one of the most engaged sports properties in the world. "2020 was a record year for us across TV, digital, social, et cetera, in terms of viewership numbers. Same thing this year: we're breaking new records and setting record highs for social, digital, and TV metrics. So we haven't seen an impact on our business from that perspective.  

"I am surprised and grateful that we are top-10 in the world, according to Nielsen, in terms of our viewership and engagement metrics," he added, noting that the cooperation of the Singapore government has been crucial to ONE's continued success. "It's been a challenge, but we've still been able to pull it off."

ONE Championship has promoted close to 50 events since the World Health Organization first classified the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020 (including its Road to ONE events, which are co-promoted with smaller leagues all over the world). The promotion's next two events, the all-female ONE: Empower event on September 3 and the stacked ONE: Revolution event on September 24—both in Singapore—are among the biggest of the bunch. 

Beyond those two blockbusters, Sityodtong and his team are also plotting a massive event in December to commemorate the martial arts promotion's 10-year anniversary. That event, he says, will go down as the biggest ONE Championship has ever promoted.

"We haven't announced anything, but our 10th anniversary will be in December," Sityodtong said. "It will be our biggest card by far—the biggest card in the history of ONE. That's all I can say so far." 

Big events such as ONE: Empower, ONE: Revolution and the promotion's 10-year bonanza give the impression that ONE is returning to its pre-pandemic habit of promoting blockbuster events all across Asia. That's an exciting thought for fans, but Sityodtong estimates it could be up to 24 months before things really get back to the way they were for his company and others in the sports media space.

Despite his pragmatic outlook, however, the ONE CEO and his team have resumed their mission of promoting an event in the United States—a mission that was briefly paused during the pandemic—and expects to be erecting the ONE Circle on American soil sooner rather than later.  

He also anticipates a warm reception from American fans.

"The plans are 90 percent done right now," Sityodtong said of ONE's planned US debut. "When the plan's 100 percent done and I'm ready to announce it, I'll announce it, but I think American fans can expect ONE to be in the US within 12 months.

"We want to make it as big as possible and we want to showcase the full spectrum [of the ONE Championship product]," he continued, explaining how ONE sets itself apart by promoting MMA, kickboxing, muay thai, and occasionally other attractions like submission grappling and boxing.

"ONE offers something that none of the U.S. promotions offer in terms of the variety of different martial arts. Also, our fighter entrances, our fighter videos, there's a lot of production that goes into it. I would argue that our production is better than Pride, and Pride obviously was the gold standard for a long time. So I think the U.S. fans are going to be really, really surprised by how different we are from the current players in the U.S." 

ONE has always been a distinctly Asian promotion, placing great importance on honoring the continent's rich martial arts history. While Asia will always be ONE's home, Sityodtong sees the US as a crucial market for the promotion.

"The reality is that ONE has become a global property—a truly global property," he said. "America is important because it's the world's largest sports market, and our entry into the US is inevitable. 100 percent we will be there, it's just a question of when."

Cracking into the competitive U.S. market will not be easy for Sityodtong and his team, but the ONE boss is confident that, with a continued blend of creativity and resilience, it can be done.

In fact, he's hoping that by the time ONE Championship is celebrating its 20-year anniversary, 10 years down the road, the promotion will be well-established stateside, as well as in Europe, South America, and Africa.

"We're going to become a true household name in every country in Asia—truly mainstream" he said. "Equally importantly, I want to become a household name in North America, in Latin America, in Europe, in Africa. I want ONE to be a truly global brand that fans love and appreciate, and that every day we're surprising and delighting our fans all over the world.

"I think it's very possible from where we're sitting," he concluded. 

Angela Lee's home is full of sounds that every new parent knows well—sounds that hung in the background as she deftly shifted from her duties as a mother to her duties as the ONE atomweight champion and picked up the phone for an interview.

"I love being a mom so much," the 25-year-old told Bleacher Report as her husband, fellow fighter Bruno Pucci, tended to their cooing, three-month-old daughter nearby. "I just love my daughter. It's amazing—more than I could have imagined.

"In the beginning, there wasn't much sleep, but things are getting much better," she added. "It's so cool how every new day, I'm learning something new, and she's doing something new. Everything we do, it's like experiencing it for the first time, because it's the first time she's doing it. It's really neat."

From the moment Lee announced her pregnancy in October 2020, she was adamant that she intended to return to the ONE Championship cage before the end of 2021. Unfortunately, getting back into fighting shape has come with its share of challenges—challenges that are difficult to accept when you're used to being at the top of your field.

"I was actually forced to eat pretty healthily for most of my pregnancy because my daughter would not let me eat oily foods or fatty foods," Lee said with a laugh. "I couldn't stand any meat—especially red meat, steak—which is crazy, because I usually love that.

"After I got cleared by my doctor, six or seven weeks after my daughter was born, I wanted to get back into training," she continued. "It's pretty difficult. The first few times, I took it really slow, but of course, being an athlete my whole life I wanted to get things going. I jumped into a couple of light sparring rounds, even grappling, and it's so different. Mentally, my mind knows what to do in positions, and I'll try to move in a certain way, and then it'll hurt—it'll be sharp, I'll feel something somewhere—and I'll have to pull back and end up doing the wrong move. That's frustrating, where mentally I know what to do, but my body just won't cooperate.

"I'm trying to work on patience and giving my body grace."

As Lee works on returning to her former form, she's drawing inspiration from the likes of Miesha Tate, Rachael Ostovich and Michelle Waterson—women she considers friends, all of whom happen to be mothers and world-class professional fighters.

"[Tate] is an inspiration, 100 percent," Lee said, referencing the former UFC bantamweight champion, who recently mounted her own comeback after giving birth to two children. "She reached out to me multiple times throughout my pregnancy and postpartum, just giving advice. 

"My friend Rachael Ostovich has a daughter, too. Also, another woman that I messaged a couple of times is Michelle Waterson. I watched her documentary, Fight Mom, and it's super-inspiring. I think I'm going to watch it again to get me through the tough times.

"It's not an easy thing to do: Being a mom is the toughest job in the world, then on top of that, being a fighter-mom is just another level. It's so nice that I'm able to reach out to women like them who have gone through the process of having babies and getting back to [fighting], because right now, this is my first time. I don't know what to expect. I don't know when my body's supposed to feel back to normal. I just feel very lucky that I'm able to reach out to these women. It helps, because you feel like you're not alone. Other people have gone through this and came out on top—so I know I will too." 

Coming out on top is, as always, what Lee strives to do.

Despite the difficulties she's encountered as she looks to get back into fighting shape, the decorated ONE titleholder is sticking to her initial projection and aims to be ready to compete again by the time the year is out.    

"I'm shooting for the end of the year," she said. "That's my goal: to be back in tip-top shape and ready to fight."

Lee will return to a division that is packed with top talent, including stars like Denice Zamboanga, Seo Hee Ham, Meng Bo, Alyona Rassohyna, Stamp Fairtex and Itsuki Hirata, all of whom seem to be in arm's reach of an atomweight title shot.

The champion is eager to get back into the cage and start vanquishing those contenders and, despite the difficult she's had recovering from her pregnancy, expects to do so with new levels of ferocity. 

After all, she now has a whole new reason to fight. 

"I'm longing to get back into the cage and get that feeling back," Lee said. "I have so much more to fight for now. Mixed martial arts has always been an outlet for me. I'm going to channel all of this energy into my next fight. It's going to be Angela Lee 2.0. 

"It's not going to be easy. It's going to be a long, hard road, but it's going to be so, so worth it once I get back to the top."

ONE Championship continues its ONE on TNT series Wednesday with the return of Eddie Alvarez. Three weeks ago, Alvarez was controversially disqualified against Iuri Lapicus at ONE on TNT 1, but that has since been overturned to a no-contest. He'll take on South Korean Ok Rae Yoon, who beat No. 5 Marat Gafurov at ONE on TNT 3.

Also on the card is undefeated heavyweight Oumar Kane taking on a debuting Kirill Grishenko. Kane has been sensational since starting his tenure at ONE in January, knocking out both of his opponents in the first round. Reug Reug will have a quick turnaround having competed on April 7 but will look for another knockout victory just three weeks later.

Main eventing the card is light heavyweight champion Aung La N Sang defending his title against Reinier De Ridder, who is looking for another belt after taking the middleweight championship from Sang.

Here's the full card, how to watch and top headlines to look out for.

Where and How to Watch

ONE on TNT 4 will take place at Singapore Indoor Stadium starting at 8:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Those in the U.S. can watch the preliminary card live on Bleacher Report or the B/R MMA Twitter account. You can also stream the prelims on B/R Live and the B/R Live YouTube channel.

The three-match main card will be shown exclusively on TNT and in the Bleacher Report app with a TV provider login starting at 10 p.m. ET. On the West Coast, the main card will be available live on the TNT app or on a delay on TNT at 10 p.m. PT.

Match Card

Main Card (TNT and Bleacher Report, 10 p.m. ET)

(c) Aung La N Sang (26-11) vs. Reinier De Ridder (13-0)

Eddie Alvarez (30-8) vs. Ok Rae Yoon (14-3)

Oumar Kane (3-0) vs. Kirill Grishenko (3-0)

Preliminary Card (Bleacher Report, B/R MMA Twitter and B/R Live, 8:30 p.m. ET)

No. 4 Shinya Aoki (46-9) vs. Eduard Folayang (22-10)

Jackie Buntan (20-5) vs. Ekaterina Vandaryeva (19-4-1)

Colbey Northcutt (1-1) vs. Courtney Martin (8-1)

(c) - champion

Top Headlines

Eddie Alvarez looks for redemption

It's been a wild month for Alvarez.

He faced No. 2-ranked Iuri Lapicus on ONE on TNT 1 less than three weeks ago and looked to be in prime position to defeat him and earn a title shot against Christian Lee. That all came crashing down when the Underground King was controversially disqualified for punches to the back of the head. An emotional Alvarez, concerned for Lapicus' health, was clearly distraught after the match.

Then earlier this week, ONE announced that the match had officially been changed to a no-contest, removing the loss from Alvarez's record. ONE's statement said that a panel "unanimously validated that illegal strikes to the back of the head occurred, but also ruled by majority that a procedural misstep occurred after the second strike to the back of the head."

This Wednesday, he has another shot at victory against Yoon, who won the chance to face Alvarez by beating Gafurov on Wednesday.

Reug Reug aims for third win in three months

At this pace, Kane may be the heavyweight champion by the end of 2021 if he continues fighting every month.

The Senegalese sensation is tearing through the division at an alarming rate. After defeating Alain Ngalani in January by first-round TKO, Kane also made quick work of Patrick Schmid at ONE on TNT 1. Less than three weeks later, he returns for his biggest test yet against the undefeated Grishenko.

Let's see if Kane's dominant run continues.

N Sang-De Ridder 2

Light heavyweight champion Aung La N Sang has held the title for over three years, and he will defend it on Wednesday against a familiar foe. Reinier De Ridder steps in to replace Vitaly Bigdash on the card, meaning that instead of a big trilogy fight, N Sang faces the man who beat him last time out. In October, De Ridder took N Sang's middleweight belt via first-round submission.

Now they meet again in the light heavyweight division, again with a belt on the line.