“A Ryu and Ken moment” - Fans loving Shinya Aoki and Yoshihiro Akiyama’s show of respect following years of hatred

The rivalry between two legends, Sinya Aoki and Yoshihiro Akiyama, appears to be behind them now, as they were seen dapping each other in the locker room of the recently concluded ONE 165 card inside the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.

This wholesome moment was captured by ONE Championship, and they recently posted it on their official Instagram account with the caption:

“Foes to brothers 🤝 The calm before the storm as Yoshihiro Akiyama and Shinya Aoki prepared for battle 🔥 @akiyamachoo @shinya050983”

Because of this show of respect between the two former bitter rivals, fans felt that they received an official closure to this feud, as users @uncle_stiven, @kimoxabe09, @will_i_am_iceman, @tobidanzolovejiujitsu, and @brojoe89 commented:

“Just a Ryu and Ken moment from two legends”

“High level fighters, High level of Respect. 🔥”

“🔥🔥🔥 the fire burn in the cage , brothers n respect always🙌”

“I love the respect”

“One of my favorite fights from @onechampionship the lead up and all! Both Legends🔥🤝”

Screenshot of comments

Aoki and Akiyama figured in a heated rivalry back in 2021 when the former made an angry callout to the latter to demand a fight because he believes that the Japanese-Korean combat sports superstar has been ducking a match with him.

Eventually, ONE Championship scheduled a fight between them at ONE X in March 2022 to settle their differences and find out who the better fighter is.

Aoki had an early head start during their match as he threatened with multiple submission attempts and shut down ‘Sexyama’ by jumping on his back early into the fight.

However, the Team Cloud representative turned the tide in the second round, where he defended the former ONE lightweight MMA world champion’s takedown and peppered him with powerful punches that eventually forced the referee to stop the fight in Akiyama’s favor.

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Shinya Aoki and Yoshihiro Akiyama had different fates during their fights at ONE 165

After their locker room interaction before their respective fights during the card, Aoki and Akiyama went out to compete in front of the Japanese faithful. However, the two hometown bets received contrasting results.

Aoki was able to submit former ONE bantamweight MMA world champion John Lineker in the opening round of their openweight MMA fight and received a $50,000 performance bonus. Meanwhile, Akiyama suffered a first-round knockout from Dutch legend Nieky Holzken during their catchweight special rules fight.