Indra Senduk, Victor Cui, Zorobabel Moreira and Yodsanan Sityodtong in Jakarta yesterday
ONE Fighting Championship hosted a press conference yesterday to reveal details about its Jakarta show. The event, which will be taking place at the BritAma Arena on February 11th, is the first professional MMA promotion to take place in Indonesia in over five years.
Although the fight card is still being completed the identity of a number of the fighters was revealed including:
Ole Laursen, Philippines
Igor Gracie, Brazil
Kevin Belingon, Philippines
Yodsanan Sityodtong, Thailand
Yuya Shirai, Japan
Youne "Indra" Victorio Senduk, Indonesia
PLUS:
Winner of the Cage Fighting Championship (CFC) bantamweight title fight between Gustavo Falciroli and Nick Honstein.
No match ups were announced but it seems probable that Igor Gracie will be up against DEEP welterweight champion Yuya Shirai and the winner of the CFC Bantamweight title fight will face Kevin Belingon. The influence of the recently formed ONE FC Network can already be felt with champions promotions such as the URCC, CFC, and DEEP all set to star in Jakarta.
A lot of attention will be on Filipino born kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter Ole Laursen. He has been out of action for over a year after suffering a couple of injury setbacks and will be looking to recapture the form which saw him submit BJJ purple belt Eduardu Pachu in a fight of the night performance at Martial Combat 2 last year.
Ole Laursen in action against Eduardu Pachu at Martial Combat 2
With a perfect professional record of 9-0 Belingon is already regarded as one of the best bantamweights in Asia and the URCC Flyweight Champion (they have unusual weight classes) will be looking to extend his unbeaten run, possibly against the winner of tonight's CFC title fight in Sydney, Australia.
Yodsanan Sityodtong is one of the best boxers ever to transition to MMA and put in an impressive performance on his debut at ONE FC 1, showing good Muay Thai skills as well as his incredible punching power to blow away Daniel Mashamaite early in the second round.
They will be joined on the card by Youne Senduk who recently won a silver medal representing Indonesia in Wushu at the SEA Games. ONE FC has also signed a TV deal with a major Indonesian sports network in Indonesia and will be shown on Global TV which is the highest rated sports channel of the nation’s largest and only integrated media company, Media Nusantara Citra.
There will be some sort of qualifier taking place in Indonesia later this year which will give more Indonesian fighters the chance to compete for a coveted spot on the ONE FC card. The identities of the remaining fighters and the actual match ups will be announced between now and February.
At present ONE FC has shows booked in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as Indonesia, with events in Korea and the Philippines also believed to be close to completion. 2012 looks set to be a very busy year for the organization and it will kick off with three shows in three countries in the space of three months starting in Jakarta in February.
Indonesia actually has a long history of BJJ and MMA with camps all over the country teaching the various components of mixed martial arts. In the past fighters had little or no opportunity to compete professionally but by putting on televised shows in major arenas ONE FC looks set to change all that and with the support of the biggest promotion in Asia behind them a new breed of mixed martial artists could be all set to emerge from Indonesia.
The ONE FC cage, coming soon to Jakarta, Indonesia.
