Lito “Thunder Kid” Adiwang is finally back in the ONE Championship athlete rankings after falling off the list a couple of months ago.
Once more, Team Lakay is running the strawweight division as Adiwang joined teammate and ONE Strawweight World Champion Joshua “The Passion” Pacio in the weight class, landing in the fifth spot of the rankings after ending the three-fight win streak of “Wolf Of The Grasslands” Hexigetu at ONE: REVOLUTION last Sept. 24.
Yosuke “The Ninja” Saruta is still the top contender in the division, while Bokang “Little Giant” Masunyane (2), Hiroba Minowa (3) and Alex “Little Rock” Silva (4) all moved up one spot.
Crashing out is former ONE Strawweight World Champion Yoshitaka “Nobita” Naito, marking the first time “Nobita” moved away from the World Title picture.
Adiwang was part of the original strawweight rankings but a loss to Minowa pushed the Filipino away from the division’s best. The 28-year-old then put up two impressive performances, knocking out Namiki Kawahara before dominating Hexigetu to effectively build his case for another spot in the rankings.
Aside from Pacio and Adiwang, four other Filipinos remain in the official rankings in Denice “Lycan Queen” Zamboanga, Danny “The King” Kingad, former ONE Bantamweight World Champion Kevin “The Silencer” Belingon, and Jenelyn Olsim.
Zamboanga remained the top contender in the atomweight division even after her contentious split-decision loss to Ham Seo Hee in the quarterfinals of the ONE Women’s Atomweight World Grand Prix.
Kingad and Belingon remained staples of their respective divisions – ranked second at flyweight and bantamweight. Olsim, who shocked Maira Mazar in her ONE debut, remains as the fifth best in the women’s strawweight division, though she’s focused on her atomweight campaign at the moment.
ONE official athlete rankings are determined by an independent panel of sports media members and industry experts following each event. The panel ranks the athletes on criteria including wins and losses, their most recent performances, and quality of competition.
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