The One Championship Middleweight Title: A Visual History

For Aung La N Sang, the road to winning back his One Championship belts now runs through Broomfield, Colo.

“The Burmese Python” (29-13) faces Fan Rong in a middleweight (205-pound) matchup next Friday, May 5, at the 1stBank Center, as part of One on Prime Video 10, the promotion’s first foray into the United States. With a win over Rong, Aung La would inch closer to another shot at his professional tormentor, Reinier de Ridder. “The Dutch Knight” relieved Aung La of his ONE middleweight and light heavyweight (225-pound) belts across two consecutive meetings in 2020 and 2021. Since then, the two have gone their separate ways: Aung La is 3-1 since then, losing only to fellow former champ Vitaly Bigdash—who missed weight for their bout—while de Ridder is 2-1, having dropped the light heavyweight title to Anatoly Malykhin in a brutal drubbing in December.

While Aung La would seem to have an uphill climb back to a third fight with de Ridder—let alone the bruiser Malykhin—his status as one of One Championship’s most popular and successful fighters may earn him some benefit of the doubt. At 37 and seemingly fighting about as well as he ever has, Aung La has time to make another run at gold, but the Rong fight next weekend will be crucial.

Here is the history of the One Championship middleweight title and the times it was won, lost or defended. It tells the story of a division whose rulers have frequently split time at light heavyweight, but found time to defend the belt on a fairly regular basis nonetheless..