The appropriately named ONE Championship: A New Era brings in the next phase of the international growth of the promotion, and Cageside Press has their picks set for a ONE card for the first time.
| Staff Writers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jason Payne (53-12) |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Drake Riggs (51-14) | | |  | | | |
| Heath Harshman (50-15) | | | | |  | |
| Joe McDonagh (48-17) | | | | | | |
| Mike Straus (46-19) | | | | | | |
| Paarth Pande (46-19) | | | | | | |
| Gabriel Gonzalez (44-21) | | | | | | |
| Jay Anderson (44-21) | | | | | | |
| Josh Evanoff (44-21) | | | | | |  |
| Dan Doherty (43-22) | | | | | | |
| Mike McClory (29-15) | | | | | | |
| Shawn Bitter (42-23) | | | | | | |
| Cory Groeneveld (5-1) | | | | | | |
| Keith Shillan (4-2) | | | | | | |
| Ryan Fortune (4-2) | | | | | | |
The main event of ONE Championship: A New Era is Eduard Folayang defending his lightweight belt against Japanese legend Shinya Aoki. Folayang originally defeated Aoki for the lightweight belt in 2016 and is in the midst of his second title reign. Aoki, a former DREAM and Shooto champion, has stopped his last three opponents to earn this title shot. All but one writer picked Folayang.
The co-main event is a superfight between champions Angela Lee and Xiong Jing Nan. Lee is undefeated at 9-0 and has defended her atomweight title three times. Nan comes in with a 13-1 record, defending her belt twice. Angela Lee was favored slightly with nine picks to six.
Aung La N Sang defends one of his two titles against Ken Hasegawa. N Sang owns both the light heavyweight and middleweight belts, having defended his middleweight belt twice during his 9-1 run with ONE Championship. Hasegawa is a former DEEP champion whose only fight in ONE was a loss to N Sang. N Sang was unanimously picked.
Kevin Belingon defends his bantamweight title in his long-awaited rubber match with Bibiano Fernandes. Belingon is on a seven-fight win streak, having defeated Fernandes in November. Fernandes defended his bantamweight belt seven times before falling to Belingon in the aforementioned fight. 10 of 15 writers believe Fernandes will reclaim his title.
Demetrious Johnson makes his promotional debut at ONE Championship: A New Era against Yuya Wakamatsu in the first round of the flyweight grand prix. Johnson is one of the consensus greatest mixed martial artists of all time, defending his UFC belt a record 11 times before falling to Henry Cejudo. Wakamatsu is 10-3 in his career with one fight in ONE in his career. Mighty Mouse was unanimously picked.
Opening up the main card and the lightweight grand prix will be the promotional debut of Eddie Alvarez against Timofey Nastyukhin. Alvarez, a former Bellator and UFC champion, joins ONE after going 4-3 with one no contest in the Octagon. Nastyukhin is 12-4 in his career and 5-3 in ONE with a win over Eduard Folayang. Alvarez was unanimously picked.
