ONE Championship parted ways with heavyweight MMA star Amir Aliakbari over the course of this past weekend.
The Iranian standout last competed under the ONE banner at ONE 169 in November 2024.
That evening, he suffered a first-round submission loss to 14-time BJJ World Champion Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida, ending the impressive four-fight winning streak he had put together in the world’s largest martial arts organization over the previous two years.
The AAA Team product rapidly rose through the heavyweight MMA ranks after recovering from back-to-back losses in his first two promotional outings in 2021 against Kang Ji Won and reigning two-weight titleholder Anatoly Malykhin.
He scored a second-round TKO win against Italian standout Mauro Cerilli in his return at ONE on Prime Video 1 in August 2022 and did the same in the opening round of his battle with former ONE Heavyweight MMA World Champion Brandon Vera four months later.
Following those impressive wins, Aliakbari’s name unsurprisingly began to be mentioned in the World Title conversation. But with the heavyweight MMA division quickly gathering pace, he needed to show that his success wasn’t coming by chance.
The 27-year-old did that by taking out Canadian powerhouse Dustin Joynson by first-round submission in July 2023 and claiming a win over former heavyweight king Arjan Bhullar in March 2024.
There was seemingly no stopping Aliakbari’s momentum, so ONE tasked him with squaring off against arguably the hottest heavyweight prospect at the time, Almeida, in his next bout.
Unfortunately, "Buchecha" proved too much for the Tehran native, and he slipped to a devastating submission defeat in the first round of their clash.
The defeat quashed any hope of a rematch with Malykhin, who parted ways with the heavyweight MMA crown when he took on “Reug Reug” Oumar Kane that same evening at ONE 169.
Aliakbari has yet to release a statement about his departure from ONE.
