Shinya Aoki welcomes "tough" challenge against Saygid Izagakhmaev; takes a dig at Mikuru Asakura

Shinya Aoki has always been a man of strong opinions, but apparently not when it comes to who he fights.

After dropping his last two bouts in the ONE circle, most would have thought a step back in competition or a fight with another older veteran would have been on the cards.

Instead, the matchmakers at ONE paired him with surging lightweight contender Saygid Izagakhmaev (21-2), who’s in his prime and undefeated in ONE Championship. Shinya Aoki expressed his surprise at the ONE 163 press conference and snidely took a jab at another popular Japanese fighter in the process:

“After losing my last two fights, I thought I would get a bit of an easier fight so that I could get back on the winning track again. But as you can see, I got such a tough fight offer. This kind of tough fight is a very rare case in Japan right now. If I was Mikuru Asakura, I would not have accepted the fight offer.”

Aoki has never been one to polish his thoughts for public approval, and he seems to believe that his countrymen have a habit of taking easy fights after a loss. Mikuru Asakura recently lost an exhibition boxing match with undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather.

At 39 years of age, Shinya Aoki is by no means in a career decline. Before losing his last MMA fight to Yoshihiro Akiyama at the massive ONE X show earlier this year, Aoki was on a four-fight win streak. After the Akiyama fight, Shinya returned at ONE 157 to take on future submission grappling champ Kade Ruotolo, where he dropped a decision.

Saygid Izagakhmaev cruised in both of his ONE Championship bouts, submitting James Nakashima by Brabo choke and out-wrestling Zhang Lipeng to a decision in September.

The bout is one of several “Japan vs. the World” fights scheduled for ONE 163, alongside fellow Japanese competitors Itsuki Hirata, Yushin Okami, and Yuya Wakamatsu. The main event features a kickboxing world title fight with Hiroki Akimoto defending his belt against Petchtanong Petchfergus. ONE 163 goes down on November 19 in Singapore.

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Shinya Aoki also down to fight Kade Ruotolo in MMA

Newly crowned ONE lightweight submission grappling world champion Kade Ruotolo expressed interest in transitioning to MMA in the near future and singled out former ONE lightweight world champion Shinya Aoki as a potential opponent.

Ruotolo grappled Aoki in his ONE debut earlier this year, fighting to a decision win. The 19-year-old ADCC champion said in his ONE on Prime Video 3 post-fight interview:

“I think a very interesting fight would be Shinya Aoki. It would kinda be a cool rematch. He fought me in a grappling bout, MMA would be very intriguing as well. I fought him in my world, it would be really cool to fight him in his world. Maybe next year we can get that going.”

Shinya Aoki has since replied with a post on his social media accounts saying:

“#metoo”