ONE on Prime Video 2 predictions: Who gets the $50,000 bonuses?

The hype has been built and it’s now high time for ONE on Prime Video 2: Xiong vs. Lee III to be the martial arts spectacle that it was promised to be.

A total of 10 matches are primed to deliver the truest form of martial arts on Friday, US primetime, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. With a potential of over 200 million viewers glued to the event, it’s no wonder that the 20 fighters on the card are going for that career-defining performance.

The higher the stakes, though, the higher the reward, and ONE Championship could be dishing out some sweet bags in its second Amazon Prime Video card.

The promotion, at the start of the year, started giving out $50,000 bonuses to fighters who are aggressive in looking for and, eventually, taking those highlight reel finishes.

While all 20 fighters at ONE on Prime Video 2 are deserving of the Benjamins, only a limited few will truly cash in and this writer thinks that these martial artists are the ones who’ll leave Singapore with a few more zeroes to their bank accounts.

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#4. Martin Nguyen

Some things in life are just inevitable, and a highlight reel featuring Martin Nguyen is one of them.

The former ONE featherweight and lightweight world champion has an absurd 91 percent finishing rate, with 10 of his 11 wins ending in either a knockout or a submission. ‘The Situ-Asian’ is also the only man in ONE Championship history to have finished reigning lightweight king Christian Lee.

Nguyen will once again put those fatal hands to the test when he takes on the debuting Ilya Freymanov in the main card of ONE on Prime Video 2.

Freymanov himself is an adept striker, as evidenced by his 8 TKOs in his 10 wins before making his way to ONE Championship. However, Nguyen is a different beast altogether.

The Vietnamese-Australian star has dispatched the greatest names in ONE Championship, which includes names like Lee, Philippine MMA icon Eduard Folayang, Mongolian martial arts legend Narantungalag Jadambaa, and former division king Marat Gafurov. Nguyen is also coming off a methodical beatdown of another promotional newcomer in Kirill Gorobets at ONE: Lights Out this past March.

Coming off his impressive knockout of Gorobets, a $50,000 bonus might just be waiting for Nguyen to collect at ONE on Prime Video 2.

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#3. Timofey Nastyukhin

Timofey Nastyukhin only knows one mode in his fights, and that is pure aggression.

The no.3-ranked lightweight contender has always been one of the most exciting fighters in ONE Championship and his fight against Halil Amir at ONE on Prime Video 2 will surely be another example of his trademark pace.

Nastyukhin also operates on different elevations and would look for that finish either on the feet or on the ground. The Russian brawler also has the killer instinct to hunt down his opponents.

The last finish Nastyukhin had inside the Circle was in his annihilation of American legend Eddie Alvarez at ONE: A New Era in March 2019. Nastyukhin went into predator mode in Tokyo tagging ‘The Underground King’ with several punches to take the first-round finish.

Three years since that monumental finish, and Nastyukhin could very well make bank at ONE on Prime Video 2.

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#2. Mikey Musumeci

This is by no means discrediting Cleber Sousa, but the genius that is Mikey Musumeci must be highlighted in some way.

‘Darth Rigatoni’, who owns what could be the greatest nickname in sports, has always been highly touted even before he arrived at ONE Championship, and boy, did he deliver. His second fight in the promotion at ONE on Prime Video 2 could also see him leave with more than just the gold.

The match against Sousa at ONE on Prime Video 2 will be for the inaugural ONE flyweight submission grappling world title and Musumeci could very well secure another bag against his old rival.

Musumeci, a five-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion, took on Japanese legend Masakazu Imanari in his promotional debut and it was at that moment that the American grappler put the mainstream audience on notice.

Imanari is one of the most influential submission artists in history and a maneuver was even named after him. Musumeci, though, nullified it and used his own creativity to sneak in a rear-naked choke that quickly forced Ashikan-Judan to tap.

That impressive performance earned Musumeci the first of potentially several $50,000 bonuses that would come his bank account’s way.

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#1. Xiong Jing Nan or Angela Lee - ONE on Prime Video 2 main event

The third fight between ONE women’s strawweight world champion Xiong Jing Nan and ONE women’s atomweight world champion Angela Lee will be one for the record books.

Animosity has been building up between two of the greatest female fighters in ONE Championship and their trilogy bout at ONE on Prime Video 2 will surely end in one of them ending up unconscious.

The two world champions are essentially going into round 11 and if the first two fights are taken as precedent, then their trilogy bout for the ONE women’s strawweight world title will surely be dramatic.

Xiong was the first to score a finish over Lee when she knocked out the atomweight queen in the fifth round of their first match at ONE: A New Era in March 2019 to retain her strawweight strap.

Lee, though, got her revenge when she forced Xiong to tap to a rear-naked choke in the fifth round of their rematch at ONE: Century Part I seven months later.

With such a heated feud between them expect Xiong and Lee to search for the finish and get that coveted advantage in their head-to-head series.