ONE Championship returned to the Jakarta Convention Center in Indonesia last evening for ONE: Quest For Power.

In the main event, ONE middleweight world champion Vitaly Bigdash returned for the first time in over a year since winning the title and he faced late replacement Aung La Nsang who was called up on just eleven days notice following an injury to Polish fighter Marcin Prachnio.

Bigdash bulldozes Aung La Nsang

Those expecting the Russian to blow away Aung La Nsang instantly were soon disappointed as the two boxed at range and began the contest tentatively throwing single strikes to close the distance.

Bigdash began using his size and power advantage in round two and backed La Nsang up against the cage multiple times and punished in the clinch. La Nsang coped well for ten minutes, but then a big turning point came in round three when Bigdash backed him up against the cage and took top control as La Nsang looked to judo throw him to the mat.

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Bigdash worked well in the guard and landed some huge elbows and strikes to cut the man from Myanmar badly above the right eye. With blood spurting out the fight was momentarily stopped to clean it up, but after the brief pause the Russian was put back into position and given another minute to work away on La Nsang.

Having somehow survived the barrage of round three, it took only five seconds of the fourth for La Nsang to find himself on his back yet again. Bigdash poured on the offensive yet again with vicious knees and elbow flying in from all angles as Nsang simply looked to survive.

To his credit, La Nsang survived another torrid fives minutes, but with four rounds in the bag and Bigdash barely in second gear, the writing looked to be on the wall.

The two embraced as round five began but the Russian’s brief moment of mercy only lasted for seconds though as he again stalked his man down. Safely in the knowledge he’d won all the previous rounds, Bigdash’s output was considerably less in the fifth as it took him a whole two minutes before he got into range to take La Nsang down yet again. The Russian again poured on the offensive but with blood streaming down his face La Nsang bravely defended and saw the contest out like true warrior.

The one sided beatdown went to the judges, but there were to be no mistakes here—Bigdash was declared the winner via unanimous decision and he successfully defended his belt for the first time.

Nguyen the man at 145lbs

In the co-main event of the evening, featherweights Martin Nguyen and Kazunori Yokota faced off in a battle of two 145lbs men looking to insert themselves right into the mix of the ONE featherweight title picture.

The first round looked as if it was going to be five minutes of both man feeling the other out, but after three and a half minutes of patience, Nguyen struck and finished the fight in devastating fashion.

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The Australian feinted forwards, but then pulled back and landed a right-hand flush to the side of the head of the Japanese fighter. Yokota hit the deck and Nguyen swarmed him landing a quick left on the ground before the referee jumped in to call the fight and give Nguyen another massive victory.

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Time will tell whether this win will be enough to take Nguyen on to challenge the featherweight champion Marat Gafurov who is the only man so far to beat him in his professional career.

Soccer Kick leads to DQ

There was controversy earlier on in the evening when Turkish fighter Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev was disqualified after hitting his opponent Georgi Stoyanov with an illegal soccer kick. Arslanaliev had dominated the opening exchanges and managed to drop Stoyanov to the mat as he looked for the finish. After a brief period of Arslanaliev having his ground and pound blocked, he became overzealous and hit his opponent with a soccer kick that landed flush to the side of the head.

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Stoyanov lay on the mat motionless and after five minutes of medical attention he was deemed unfit to continue. Arslanaliev was at that point given a red card and disqualified from the contest.

 ONE: Quest for Power Full Results

Vitaly Bigdash def. Aung La Nsang via Unanimous Decision to retain the ONE middleweight title
Martin Nguyen def. Kazunori Yokota via TKO (punches), Round 1
Vincent Latoel def. Vaughn Donayre via unanimous decision
Georgi Stoyanov def. S. Arslanaliev via DQ (intentional soccer kick ground strike)
Anthony Engelen  def. AJ Lias Mansor via KO (punch), Round 1
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 Igor Subora def. Sherif Mohamed via Unanimous Decision
Sunoto Peringkat def. Chan Heng via TKO (ground strikes), Round 1 
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Rene Catalan def. Adrian Matheis via Submission (Armbar), Round 2
Stefer Tahardian def. Jerome s. Paye via Unanimous Decision