Vitaly Bigdash Bests Aung La Nsang to Defend ONE Championship Middleweight Title | MMAWeekly.com

Vitaly Bigdash made light of his year-plus absence from the cage to claim a one sided decision win over Aung La Nsang in Indonesia on Saturday.  Their middleweight title fight headlined ONE: Quest for Power at the Jakarta Convention Centre and it was the undefeated Russian who prevailed after a 25-minute battle.

There wasn’t much to choose between the fighters in the first two rounds, although it was immediately noticeable that Bigdash looked in fantastic shape, while La Nsang was a little puffy around the waist, having taken the fight at around three week’s notice.

Bigdash seemed to be biding his time and in the third round he hurt La Nsang with a head kick and then successfully defended a trip attempt to end up on top. From there, the Russian was relentless with ground and pound, opening up a cut that caused the fight to be temporarily paused.

La Nsang survived the round, but by this stage he was well behind on the scorecards and spent the majority of the fourth and fifth rounds on the bottom. It left the judges with a simple decision and all three awarded the fight to Bigdash, who improves to 9-0 and defends his title for the first time.

La Nsang drops to 19-10-0-1 after seeing a four-fight winning streak snapped, but it would be harsh to write off his title credentials on the basis of this performance. He had less than three weeks to prepare for the fight and didn’t appear to be in anything close to peak physical condition.

There are no such asterisks next to Martin Nguyen’s performance in the co-main event. The Australian knocked Kazunori Yokota down with a right hand and then swarmed him to record his fifth ONE Championship win with all five coming courtesy of a stoppage. 

Nguyen’s record now stands at 8-1 and he is in pole position for a shot at reigning featherweight champion Marat Gafurov, the only man to ever beat him. Yokota’s career is moving in the opposite direction. Having won 13 straight fights in Japan, he’s now lost two out of two with ONE Championship.

There were also wins for Vincent Latoel, Igor Subora, Sunoto, and Anthony Engelen, while Saygid Arslanaliev suffered the first defeat of his career after being penalized for an illegal soccer kick against Georgi Stoyanov.

ONE: Quest for Power Results

• Vitaly Bigdash beat Aung La N Sang by Decision (Unanimous) at 5:00 of round 5
• Martin Nguyen beat Kazunori Yokota by TKO (Punches) at 3:36 of round 1
• Vincent Latoel beat Vaughn Donayre by Decision (Unanimous) at 5:00 of round 3
• Georgi Stoyanov beat Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev by Disqualification (Illegal Soccer Kick) at 1:30 of round 1
• Igor Subora beat Sherif Mohamed by Decision (Unanimous) at 5:00 of round 3
• Sunoto beat Chan Heng by TKO (punches)  at 2:30 of round 1
• Anthony Engelen beat A.J. Lias Mansor by KO (Punch) at 1:42 of round 1
• Stefer Rahardian beat Jerome S. Paye by Decision (Unanimous) at 5:00 of round 3
• Rene Catalan beat Adrian Matheis by Submission (Armbar) at 2:08 of round 2