Yoshihiro Akiyama secured this awesome knockout victory at last Friday’s ONE: King of the Jungle event in Singapore.
Akiyama, also known as “Sexyama” made an appearance on the event’s main card, going against Egypt’s Sherif Mohamed in a 185-pound scrap.
The contest was the biggest opportunity of Mohamed’s career, and he looked to make the most of it from the get-go. Right from the opening bell, the Egyptian fighter went forward, just swinging for the fences. While he managed to land some big shots, Akiyama remained calm, gradually countering and mixing in some leg kicks.
Near the end of the 1st round the thickly-muscled Egyptian fighter started to show signs of fatigue. Akiyama was able to capitalize on this and delivered the fight ending shot. A raging right hook sent his opponent down to the canvas out cold.
After his win, the soft-spoken Japanese fighter called for a ONE Championship event in South Korea — this is something that ONE FC have wanted to do, but have not yet to make it happen.
Akiyama is Japanese-Korean by heritage and has previously talked about his desire to help the new generation of Korean fighters.
“In Korea right now there are hungry athletes who are not yet popular who deserve a chance,” Akiyama told BJPENN.com back in June of 2019, before his ONE Championship debut. “By representing Korea very well, I hope that ONE Championship will go to Korea, host a very big event, and those deserving Korean athletes can get a chance to fight for ONE Championship also. I hope that I can help them out.”
With this win over Mohamed, Yoshihiro Akiyama now sports a record of 1-1 in ONE Championship. He lost a tight decision to former title challenger Agilan Thani in his ONE FC debut. The 44-year-old fight game veteran’s record is now 15-7 overall.
This article first appeared on CLOSEDGUARDMEDIA.com on 28th February, 2020.
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