ONE FC Bolsters Roster With Seven New Signings, Including Pang, Mazepa and Holley

ONE Fighting Championship has continued to expand its roster, signing seven new fighters.

The new additions include Adrian Pang, Irina Mazepa, Vaughn Donayre, Hiroshige Tanaka, Koji Ando, Christian Holley and Cristiano Kaminishi.

Australia’s Pang represents the most experienced fighter of the group. The 36-year-old lightweight has compiled a record of 20-8-2 fighting across the globe. Pang is an owner and coach of one of Australia’s top gyms, Integrated MMA, and he recently appeared as the striking coach for Team Australia on The Ultimate Fighter: Nations. Pang, a former Legend FC lightweight champion, is widely considered as one of the best lightweight fighters to come out of Australia. He holds notable wins over Yui Chul Nam and Woo Sung Yu, and he has been victorious in five of his last six bouts. There isn’t much that Pang, who made his professional debut in 2001, hasn’t seen in competition. Now, he has his eyes firmly set on securing the ONE FC lightweight title, which is currently held by Shinya Aoki.

Russia’s Mazepa is a decorated kickboxer and wushu practitioner. She is a six-time world champion in wushu and a K-1 world champion. Mazepa started practicing wushu when she was seven years old. After winning all the possible titles and medals offered in the sport, both nationally and internationally, Mazepa decided to transition into other combat sports at the age of 25. Her thirst for competition took her into other striking arts such as Muay Thai, kickboxing and boxing. Mazepa has prided herself on sourcing the best possible competition in order to truly test herself. The flyweight combatant will now try her hand at MMA inside the ONE FC cage with hopes of becoming a world champion in yet another discipline of martial arts.

Donayre is a Filipino fighter who has largely competed in his homeland under the URCC banner. The Deftac Cebu lightweight carries a record of 7-1 with the majority of his victories coming by way submission. Donayre, who went undefeated in URCC, was on track to compete for the URCC lightweight title until he opted to chase glory in Dubai, where he is also a coach at The Champion Club. Donayre joins the ONE FC lightweight division on the back of a fight with veteran Australian competitor Gokhan Turkyilmaz. The two fought three hard rounds, with Turkyilmaz coming out the victor and handing Donayre his first professional loss. Donayre makes yet another addition to the ever-growing list of Filipino fighters for ONE FC. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blue belt and 2010 PanAsian gold medalist is extremely popular in his home country.

The 32-year-old Tanaka will enter the promotion’s featherweight division riding the momentum of a seven-fight winning streak. The Shooto and Zst veteran holds 10 career wins, with six coming by way of first-round knockout. Tanaka’s last two bouts were finished in the very first round, with the veteran winning both by way of knockout. With almost four years of experience under the Shooto banner, Tanaka is amongst the best competitors from his native Japan. Tanaka trains out of the famed Shooting Gym Yokohama alongside Takeshi ‘Lion’ Inoue and has competed in Japan throughout his whole career, defeating many top featherweights in the country.

Ando is a Japanese fighter who has competed for Legend FC, Road FC and the now-defunct Sengoku promotion. The 29-year-old lightweight has won his last three outings and holds a victory over recent ONE FC signee Jadamba Narantungalag, whom he defeated for the Legend FC lightweight title. As a judoka, Ando finished in the top eight of the All-Japan Judo Tournament when he was still a high school student. His love of judo led him to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and he later transitioned into mixed martial arts. Ando trains at Tokyo’s Wajutsu Keishukai. He has tasted defeat just once over the course of a four-year period.

The English-born, Spain-based Holley gives the promotion another intriguing prospect in the 155-pound division. He has yet to taste defeat in his 10-fight career. Holley, who relocated from England to Spain at a very early age, found his love of martial arts through necessity when he was forced to constantly defend himself in the schoolyard. At the age of 14, he became a first dan black belt in Shotokan karate. Holley later transitioned to MMA, where he found success early in his career by winning multiple Spanish titles in his first two years of competition. The majority of Holley’s bouts have been finished in the first round through either submission or strikes.

Kaminishi will add depth to the promotion’s 205-pound division. The 34-year-old fighter has gone 8-1 while competing for Heat and Deep. He has notched four wins via strikes. Kaminishi is a former Heat heavyweight champion and has also won multiple Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu titles across multiple weight divisions. Originally from Brazil, he is half Japanese and half Brazilian. He made the move to Japan at the age of 17. Kaminishi is a BJJ black belt under Watanabe-san of Axis Jiu-Jitsu, one of the pioneering BJJ academies in Japan. Kaminishi has spent years training with some of the best fighters in the world, including Pride and UFC legend Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and he also spent his years before competing in the corners of top fighters such as Nogueira, Paulo Filho and Mario Sperry.

All seven fighters are expected to make their promotional debuts in the coming months.

http://themmacorner.com/2014/06/03/one-fc-bolsters-roster-with-seven-new-signings-including-pang-mazepa-and-holley/

The Ando and Kaminishi signings are fantastic. ONE is the best it's ever been.

ONE are stepping up their game with solid signings.

Very good signings for ONE

I like how far they have removed themselves from their upstart signings of "UFC veterans" and other legacy fighters.