Japan’s Yoshihiro Akiyama earns 1st ONE Championship win, knocks out Egypt’s Sherif Mohamed at ‘ONE: King of the Jungle’ in Singapore

Yoshihiro “Sexyama” Akiyama, 44, of Japan and South Korea was one of the hometown winners at “ONE: King of the Jungle.” It was his first victory in ONE Championship.

Featuring one Muay Thai title bout, one kickboxing title bout and nine mixed martial arts matches, “ONE: King of the Jungle” was a closed-door event held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. In the eighth bout of the evening, Akiyama competed in an MMA match in the welterweight division against Sherif “The Shark” Mohamed, 36, of Egypt.

Kemp Cheng served as the referee. From the opening bell, Mohamed railed off wild haymakers, forcing Akiyama to backpedal and box from distance.

Akiyama showed great head movement. He was able to evade most of Mohamed’s power shots.

Towards the end of the round, Akiyama punctuated his performance by landing a well-placed right hook as Mohamed was coming in. Cheng put a stop to the welterweight contest after 3 minutes and 4 seconds in the first round when the Japanese-Korean contender knocked out his Egyptian opponent.

In the post-fight interview inside the ONE Championship cage, Mitch “The Dragon” Chilson asked Akiyama what he wanted next. The Japanese-Korean MMA veteran he simply wanted to compete in an event of the promotion in South Korea.

Winning at “ONE: King of the Jungle” improved the professional MMA record of Akiyama to 15 wins, 7 losses, 0 draw and 2 No Contest. On the other hand, Mohamed downgraded to 8 wins and 6 losses.

Including Egypt and Japan, 13 countries were represented at “ONE: King of the Jungle.” The others were Australia, Canada,  India, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

Mohamed solely represented Egypt. “ONE: King of the Jungle” marked his fourth bout and fourth consecutive loss in ONE Championship.

Akiyama was one of the four representatives of Japan. “ONE: King of the Jungle” marked his second outing in ONE Championship.