Since its establishment in 2011, ONE Championship has established itself as Asia’s premier mixed martial arts organization. The Singapore-based media conglomerate is currently the continent’s largest sports media firm, attracting top boxers from Asia and throughout the world. Every year, China’s mixed martial arts talent pool seems to expand, and many of them end up competing in the ONE Championship. Only one Chinese native has so far claimed the coveted champion title: reigning ONE Women’s Strawweight World Champion Xiong Jingnan.
Xiong, however, is far from the only Chinese fighter with championship potential. 22 Chinese fighters compete in ONE’s MMA league, while another six compete in muay Thai and kickboxing. Although we think that every one of China’s ONE Championship fighters is deserving of the world’s attention, we’ve broken down the list to the top 10 fighters to look for.
Here is the list of Top 10 MMA fighters
Fan Rong
Fan Rong, often nicknamed the ‘King Kong Warrior,’ is the only Chinese fighter in ONE Championship’s three heaviest weight divisions. Before entering the ONE Championship roster, he had a 12-1 record and has since gone 2-2 in the ring with 14 wins and three defeats for a total of 14 wins and three losses.
His first loss in ONE was a technical knockout to invincible Dutch fighter Reiner de Ridder, who is presently the ONE Light Heavyweight and ONE Middleweight World Champions. The 28-year-old middleweight comes from Jinzhou, Liaoning Province in Northeast China, and attended university in Harbin. It was then that he met Jiang Long Yun, his current coach. Jiang’s physical strength wowed Fan, who chose to pursue MMA as a way to see the world beyond China’s borders.
Qiu Jianliang
In September 2012, Qiu Jianliang joined China’s National Muay Thai Team, and the following year, he moved to Da Dong Xiang fight club. He won two consecutive Muay Thai World Championship titles in 2013 and 2014 after winning silver, bronze, and gold at the Chinese Muay Thai Championship from 2011 to 2013.
In 2017, he was crowned Featherweight World Champion. He went on to win seven more fights with the promotion before being sidelined for the entire year of 2020 due to a ligament injury to his right knee. Qiu took advantage of his two-year layoff to get a sports marketing degree from Loughborough University in England before joining ONE Championship’s kickboxing division in June 2021, where he is currently on an 18-bout victory streak. Qiu switched to kickboxing during this period, winning the title of Glory of Heroes.
Zhang Lipeng
In the world of sports, the adage “age is just a number” can only hold so much weight, but if there is one Chinese fighter who embodies the phrase, it is without a doubt Zhang Lipeng.
After winning The Ultimate Fighter: China reality series, he fought for the UFC for a short period, earning one victory and two defeats, bringing his overall record to 9-9-1 at the time. The native of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, went on to become the welterweight champion of Kunlun Fight and has won 22 of his previous 25 fights, with two losses and one draw, for a record of 31-11-2.
Banma Duoji
Banma Duoji has come a long way from being an impoverished Tibetan boy to becoming a professional boxer. He debuted in the ONE Championship in August 2021, losing to former ONE Strawweight World Champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke, a Muay Thai great nearly twice his age. But don’t allow the first-round loss to deter you from keeping an eye on this budding talent, because the young southpaw is a force to be reckoned with. He presently has a 13-2 record and a 100% completion rate.
Banma, a product of Chengdu’s infamous Enbo Fight Club, is no stranger to the limelight. In 2017, he was featured in a VICE documentary on Enbo, and the following year, he acted in the Chinese boxing film The Golden Belt.
Tang Kai
Tang, a capable attacker with exceptional takedown skills and ground-and-pound technique, is undefeated in the ONE Championship with five victories and an impressive eight-fight winning run overall. Before his most recent victory, a first-round TKO against Yoon Chang Min of South Korea, Tang expressed dissatisfaction with the matchup, claiming he should be fighting against the division’s top five competitors.
Tang’s record now stands at 13-2, putting him in contention for a spot in the top five featherweights. It’s been a long time coming for the self-proclaimed fastest fighter in his division. Regardless of Tang’s plans, he’ll be one to keep an eye on.
Meng Bo
Meng is one of four Chinese women competing in the ONE Championship, and she hopes to follow in the footsteps of another Chinese fighter Xiong Jingnan, who won China’s first-ever MMA world champion in 2018. Meng is 3-1 with ONE, having lost her most recent fight in September to India’s Ritu Phogat in the Atomweight World Grand Prix Quarterfinal. While the judges voted unanimously in favor of Phogat, Meng dominated early on, nearly ending the bout with an armbar in the first round.
Before the fight, she aroused the wrath of ONE’s current atomweight champion, Angela Lee, for trash-talking the champion, whom Meng expected to face in the ring as a title candidate. It’s now up to Meng to back up her words with action, and at 25, another championship run isn’t out of the question.
Niu Kang Kang
Niu Kang Kang first joined ONE Championship in 2019, the same year that he had his only two ONE Championship fights. With an overall record of five wins and one loss in ONE, he is still undefeated. Niu unleashed a powerful left kick to the face of Indonesian opponent Sunoto Peringkat in his ONE Championship 87 debut, putting the veteran fighter out cold only 30 seconds into the first round. The referee can be seen diving in front of Niu before delivering a second ground punch after Peringkat went down with such power.
The fight took place in the first month of 2019, but many were already speculating that it could be a contender for ‘KO of the year.’ While the award never arrived, it’s unlikely that the Henan-born flyweight’s ONE Championship career will end without him delivering a thrashing.
Chen Rui
Chen, also known as “The Ghost,” began his training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu before switching to mixed martial arts in 2015, the same year he made his professional debut. The next year, he won the ONE Jakarta Bantamweight Tournament at ONE: TITLES & TITANS. The 25-year-old featherweight went 7-0 before losing his first fight at ONE Championship — Master of Destiny in July 2019, and since then, he’s gone 9-3 with two wins and two defeats.
He may have lost his previous two matches, but they were both terrific three-round battles. You’ll want to watch Chen fight next time he gets into the cage because more than half of his fights result in a KO or TKO.
Xie Wei
Xie Wei is approaching his third year in the ONE Championship, and he has already made nine appearances with only one loss. Xie was a troublemaker as a child, but at the age of 14, he found discipline at the fabled Shaolin Temple, where he spent four years training with warrior monks.
The 25-year-old flyweight, whose style is defined by lethal boxing tactics and powerful elbows, debuted in ONE Championship in 2019 with a 2-2 record, having previously competed in regional Chinese promoters such as Kunlun Fight. He is presently 10-3 with ONE Championship, having won eight of his nine fights by knockout or technical knockout.
Hu Yong
After two consecutive losses and nearly two years since his last bout, Hu Yong joined ONE Championship’s Hero Series in January 2019. Before joining ONE’s main roster, he won his first contest unanimously and went unbeaten in the Hero Series. In 2021, he defeated Yodkaikaew Fairtex by unanimous decision, although Hu is still a relatively unknown figure in the industry. Even fundamental information, such as his birthplace, is missing from his MMA profiles.
Hu lost his most recent bout on December 3 against fellow bantamweight boxer Yuya Wakamatsu of Japan. Even so, it was a fairly even three-round contest, and it won’t be his last appearance in the ring.
