ONE Championship closed out its tripleheader on Saturday, October 17, with ONE Samurai 4 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo. The headliner had Jonathan Haggerty defending the ONE bantamweight kickboxing title against Hiroki Akimoto, the hometown fighter who used to hold that same belt. Cageside Press and ONE Championship both put up full results pages. The main event result wasn’t in the early reporting available at publication, though, so this piece covers what’s confirmed, and the winners will be added once they’re on the record.
Akimoto’s route back was simple and old-fashioned. Cageside Press noted he lost the title in 2022 and then won three straight to earn the rematch-style shot at his old strap. Yahoo Sports described the trip for Haggerty as stepping into hostile territory, which is a fair way to put it when the challenger is a former champ fighting in front of his own people at one of Tokyo’s big rooms.
The co-main was the other title fight. ONE atomweight Muay Thai world champion Nadaka Yoshinari defended against Malaysian challenger Rifdean Masdor, and Yahoo Sports reported Nadaka walked in on a 42-bout winning streak. That’s a lot of consecutive wins.
The rest of the card, per Cageside Press:
- Masaaki Noiri vs. Mohammad Siasarani (kickboxing)
- Rukiya Anpo vs. Bogdan Shumarov (kickboxing)
- Itsuki Hirata vs. Jihin Radzuan (MMA)
- Yuki Yoza vs. Nabil Anane (kickboxing)
- Shintaro Matsukura vs. Sinsamut Klinmee (kickboxing)
- Shozo Isojima vs. Kota Abe (MMA)
- Toki Tamaru vs. Shoma Okumura (kickboxing)
- Yu Takeuchi vs. Ryoto Nishiyama (MMA)
- Yoshinari Fukushima vs. Masaki Takeura (submission grappling)
Yahoo Sports also reported the night included a semifinal in the ONE Samurai Featherweight Kickboxing Tournament, plus a Hall of Fame ceremony for Japanese icon Takeru Segawa. That’s a big moment for the Japanese crowd regardless of what happened in the cage. The card streamed on Live.ONEFC.com and on U-NEXT in Japan, with the first bout going off at 2:30 a.m. ET (11:30 p.m. PT on Oct. 16).
My quick take. I like Akimoto’s path more than most title challengers’ paths, because three straight wins after losing the belt is a résumé, and too many shots these days get handed out off one good highlight and a nice walkout song. The champion-on-the-road angle is the part I’d be careful with. Home crowds don’t throw punches, and I’ve personally donated money to the idea that they do. As for Nadaka, a 42-fight streak is the kind of number that makes my contrarian brain start reaching for the challenger’s side of the ticket on principle alone. That’s usually how I end up writing columns about bad bets, so Masdor had to show me something real. The tournament semifinal winner moves on, and the full results pages from ONE and Cageside Press are where the official decisions and times will land.
