Yahoo Sports Shinya Aoki Would Drop to Featherweight for Bibiano Fernandes Superfight
During Shinya Aoki’s dominant decision win over Koji Ando at ONE: Warrior’s Quest last Friday night, the commentators continually teased the possibility of the champion dropping down to featherweight to face reigning 135-pound king Bibiano Fernandes.
Aoki did look noticeably smaller than Ando, although it didn’t stop him from dominating the challenger for 25 minutes to retain his belt and register an eighth successive win. The Japanese fighter has already tested the waters at featherweight successfully once and would not rule out a repeat of that experiment.
“If there is a chance to fight with Fernandes then I am open to it, but for now the plan is to stay at lightweight.”
The “super fight” with Fernandes is one that ONE Championship seems very open to making and Aoki acknowledges that he has a very comfortable cut at his current weight class of 155 pounds.
“This fight was an easy weight cut for me. I cut only 4 to 5 kilograms (roughly 10 pounds).”
That would put Aoki’s walking weight at around 165 pounds, which puts him on the small side for a lightweight. Many top lightweights walk around at 170 pounds or more. That hasn’t prevented Aoki from beating some of the top fighters in the division over the course of his 12-year professional career.
Aoki sprang a few tactical surprises in the fight with Ando, switching to a striking strategy in round two despite having spent the first five minutes completely controlling the Japanese challenger on the ground. He ate a few jabs for his troubles, but says he wanted to spend a round standing in order to utilize some of the techniques he had worked on in training.
“I wanted to use my Muay Thai because my coach Peneak (Sitnumnoi) at Evolve MMA had helped me a lot with my striking. I have a very good affinity with him.”
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Despite finding himself on the receiving end of those jabs from Ando, he still believes that he won the second round.
“I think that I ruled in that round because my kick was successful.”
It is testament to Aoki’s superiority that he was able to experiment with a variety of different strategies during the fight and still win comfortably on the scorecards. He came close with an armbar attempt at the end of the third round and was so far ahead that he spent much of the final five minutes showboating.
With less than 30 seconds to go in the third round, Aoki abandoned the aforementioned armbar and started to throw elbows instead. Ando also survived a rear-naked choke attempt and the “Tobikan Judan” believes the fierce resistance of his grounded opponent forced him to alternate between submission attempts and throwing strikes.
“His defense was strong and that is why I gave up the submission and changed to striking instead.”
As for the antics in the final five minutes, when Aoki jumped guard and tried to butt scoot towards Ando, the champion says he saw no point in taking unnecessary chances at that stage of the fight.
“I knew I would win the decision so I wanted to fight without risk in the final round.”
It was Aoki’s fifth fight for ONE Championship and all but one of them has taken place inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium. He trains at the nearby Evolve MMA gym and enjoys a tremendous rapport with the local fans.
“I love fighting in Singapore. The fans give me more power because I get so much support from them and from all the Evolve MMA students who come to watch.”
Aoki has often courted controversy during his career, but these eccentric antics seem to have won him the hearts and minds of ONE Championship fans. He admits signing a long-term deal with the promotion in 2012 was something of a gamble, but says he has absolutely no regrets.
“The contract from ONE FC was very good, the best of my career, but at the time I did not know how big it would grow. The stadium in Singapore was full on Friday and it made me very happy to see so many people in the crowd and to see that MMA is becoming popular all over Asia now, not just in Japan.”
Aoki remains a marquee star on the ONE Championship roster and he says regardless of whether his next match-up is a lightweight title defense or a ‘super fight’ with someone like Fernandes, he wants to continue to show different facets to his game.
“I want to improve as a fighter, that is why I joined Evolve MMA in Singapore and now I have more options than before because I can use my ground game or I can use my Muay Thai skills, but I believe I can still get better.”
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