ONE Championship's first event in its new monthly Japanese series just got heavier with the addition of two all-Japanese MMA matchups.
ONE SAMURAI 1 takes place April 29 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo and already carries four world title fights on its card. The latest additions — Tatsumitsu Wada against Seiichiro Ito at flyweight, and Kanata Nagai against Atsuya Kanbe at bantamweight — lean into the event's identity as a showcase for Japanese martial arts.
Wada is the familiar name on the card. The 37-year-old has been a fixture in ONE's flyweight division since 2018, compiling 26 career wins and testing himself against the division's upper tier, including former champion Demetrious Johnson and title challenger Danny Kingad.
His grappling-centred approach has made him a persistent presence in the rankings, but back-to-back losses to Sanzhar Zakirov and Avazbek Kholmirzaev have pushed him to a crossroads. A win in Tokyo, on home soil, in front of a crowd that knows his name, would reset his trajectory.
Ito arrives with the kind of credentials that make him more than a warm body for a veteran to dust himself off against. The 27-year-old former Interim Flyweight King of Pancrase brings an 18-4 record into his ONE debut, with eight submission victories as part of a 79 percent finish rate.
He is a balanced, well-rounded fighter. He's tight on defense, comfortable on the feet, and dangerous the moment a fight goes to the ground. Wada's experience is real, but Ito's tools are legitimate enough to give any flyweight trouble.
The Nagai-Kanbe pairing represents the division below and the generation coming up behind it. Nagai enters with a perfect 9-0 record built entirely on the Japanese regional circuit, the kind of run that earns a fighter a global audition.
He is primarily a striker and he has shown consistent finishing instincts at every level he has competed. Kanbe brings an 8-1 record and a more multi-dimensional attack. At 26, he is comfortable mixing disciplines and has the grappling foundation to drag fights into uncomfortable territory for opponents who prefer to keep it standing.
Neither fighter has competed at this level before. The stakes are straightforward. A decisive performance on a card this size accelerates a career in ways that regional wins cannot. Both understand that.
