ONE Championship: Dawn of Heroes just got deeper.
Martin Nguyen (12-3) has been booked to defend the ONE Featherweight World Championship against Koyomi Matsushima (11-3) on Friday, August 2 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
“It’s a true blessing to come back to the Philippines,” said Nguyen, who is fighting in Manila for the fifth time in his stellar seven-year pro career.
Back in 2015, Nguyen embarked on an unprecedented six-bout winning streak. Along the way, he captured both the ONE Featherweight and ONE Lightweight World Titles to become a simultaneous two-division mixed martial arts world champion.
After falling to injury, however, Nguyen was prompted to vacate the lightweight belt in September 2018.
After Nguyen fully recovered from injury, the Vietnamese-Australian sensation returned to action against dangerous veteran Narantungalag Jadambaa, delivering a flying knee knockout victory.
The 26-year-old Matsushima is one of the fastest rising martial artists from Japan.
Hailing from Kanagawa prefecture located in the Kantō region of Japan, Matsushima has put together a handful of solid performances while competing in local Japanese martial arts promotions Pancrase and Shooto.
In his ONE Championship debut last September, Matsushima scored a stunning first-round technical knockout victory over former ONE World Champion Marat Gafurov, announcing his arrival on the global stage of martial arts competition.
In his most recent outing last June, Matsushima dominated top Korean featherweight Kwon Won Il to win by unanimous decision.
Also announced were the addition of Yushin Okami and Edward Kelly to the card.
Okami takes on James Nakashima (11-0) in a three-round welterweight contest while Edward Kelly (12-6) faces Xie Bin (7-1) in a featherweight war.
Completing the card is a bantamweight showdown between Indonesian veteran Sunoto (11-5) and Malaysian star Muhammad Aiman (5-3).
