While K-1's young super welterweight (-70 kg) division has quickly grown into one of the most exciting rosters in the world, the organization has experienced an exodus of some of its biggest domestic stars.
Two of their biggest draws Takeru and Masaaki Noiri have already gone to join ONE Championship. The next potential superstar for K-1 Yuki Yoza has expressed his discontent with the competition in K-1 and desire to join ONE, and he is likely to do so soon.
Yesterday, 22-4 former K-1 Champion KANA appeared on the Japanese broadcast of ONE 168: Denver alongside Noiri and announced that she would be joining ONE Championship.
From today, I am KANA, a ONE Championship athlete. [...] I am excited. After all, the opponents I want to fight in my kickboxing career are in ONE Championship. I want to challenge myself to see how far I can go in the end as a culmination of my career, so I will do my best to win the belt in ONE.
Chasing a Challenge
KANA has been one of the top female fighters in her division for several years. Before ONE snatched up the top talents, she defeated top kickboxers such as Josephine Knutsson, Kim Townsend, and ONE alumnus Cristina Morales.
She persistently challenged kickboxing legend Anissa Meksen after each of her victories, leading to them trading blows on social media last year as Meksen invited KANA to fight her in ONE Championship while ONE Boss Chatri Sityodtong said: “[KANA is] not good enough to hang with ONE's strikers. I am supportive of this fight if KANA wants to test her skills against Meksen in ONE.”
Despite KANA having lost her last fight to Antonia Prifti, and Phetjeeja having quickly overtaken the division since the clash between Meksen and KANA, the goal remains the same: the ONE title.
Breathing Life into a Stagnating Division
Despite having the strongest and most exciting female kickboxing roster in the world, it feels at times as if ONE forgets about it, to the point that all-time greats such as Meksen and Todd have only had three fights in the past three years, there are no women's Atomweight Kickboxing or Muay Thai ranking on their website, and Friday Fight shows rarely if ever have any female kickboxing fights. Now that Phetjeeja, the division's champion and most active fighter is in a dispute with her former gym, Venum Training Camp, she has not been able to get fights in ONE Championship. The signing of KANA is a sign that management is trying to fix the lack of movement in the division.
