Both Kevin Belingon (11-2) and Masakatsu Ueda (17-2-2) collected impressive wins this past Friday at ONE Fighting Championship’s ‘Kings & Champions’ event, which went down in Singapore.
Belingon’s stellar performance over Vietnamese-born Thanh Vu (3-2) might have sent a message to the rest of the fighters in the Bantamweight division, while Ueda’s slow and methodical submission victory over Jens Pulver (27-18-1) proved that the Japanese veteran is amongst the elite of combat personnel in the Asian region.
Ueda was undoubtedly the favorite heading into his semi-final clash with former UFC Lightweight Champion Jens Pulver. The 35-year-old is known for his slow but effective pace during his fights, and the Singaporean fans were treated to the same style of action this past Friday. After ending the first 5 minutes with a Kimura submission attempt, Ueda, a former Shooto 145-lbs title holder, found himself in deep waters when Pulver caught a kick and timed a picture-perfected takedown at the start of the 2nd stanza. Despite transitioning to Ueda’s back, though, Pulver failed to capitalize. Instead, his Japanese counterpart reversed position, and found himself in full-guard. The 35-year-old started raining down punches with great positional control, before sinking in a D’arce choke that forced a tap. Following his Unanimous Decision loss at the hands of Travis Marx at Bellator 64, the Japanese hot shot is now unbeaten in his past 2 bouts – all of which have come under the ONE FC banner.
Kevin Belingon, in the meantime, also needed less than 10 minutes to showcase his superiority over Thanh Vu. The Team Lakay native dominated the 1st round with his striking, and mixed things up with some takedowns as well. Round 2 saw more of the same from the Filipino-born fighter except on this occasion, a barrage of strikes (which was ended by a hard left punch) sent Vu into the shadows on wobbly legs, promptly forcing an intervention by referee Kenichi Serizawa. Some people thought it was poor call from the referee, but in my humble opinion, I felt that the referee had made an excellent stoppage. Belingon is now 2-2 in his past 4 ONE FC bouts, following his unbeaten start to his professional Mixed Martial Arts career.
With both fighters providing different styles to their own facets of MMA skills, the Bantamweight Grand Prix Final promises to be unpredictable and explosive. Will Belingon be able to impose his fast striking game? Or will Ueda force Belingon into a slow, methodical fight?
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