Win. Lose. Win. Lose. Win. Lose. Masaaki Noiri has described his ONE Championship record himself, in exactly those terms, and said it ends now.
Noiri enters the ONE SAMURAI Featherweight Kickboxing Tournament at ONE SAMURAI 2, broadcasting live and exclusively on live.onefc.com from Ebara Wave Arena Ota in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday, August 8. The 33-year-old Team Vasileus fighter opens with a quarterfinal rematch against Chinese contender Liu “Spirit Dragon” Mengyang, who handed him a decision loss at ONE Friday Fights 92 in December 2024.
Noiri responded to that defeat with consecutive finishes of Shakir Al-Tekreeti and Tawanchai PK Saenchai, the latter earning him the ONE Interim Featherweight Kickboxing World Title in March 2025. A competitive five-round loss to Superbon in the unification fight at ONE 173 in November followed. The win column again, then the loss column again. He has diagnosed the problem clearly and said publicly what needs to change.
Since Takeru Segawa’s retirement at ONE SAMURAI 1 in April, Noiri has felt the weight shift. He watched Takeru walk out of Ariake Arena as a ONE World Champion. The responsibility of representing Japanese kickboxing on the global stage now sits differently on his shoulders.
“I was simply moved by [Takeru’s performance]. With Takeru [now retired], I feel that I must become the fighter to shoulder the responsibility [of leading the sport] in his place,” he said.
“Since I started competing in ONE, it’s been a string of alternating wins and losses. But I am not going to lose anymore, so please expect great things from me.”
Masaaki Noiri has identified Liu Mengyang’s emotional tendency and plans to exploit it in Tokyo
Masaaki Noiri is not arriving at ONE SAMURAI 2 to repeat the first fight with Liu Mengyang. He studied what went wrong against Superbon, identified the specific scoring habits he needs to correct, and returned to training at Team Vasileus without changing anything fundamental about his preparation.
Liu has grown significantly since their first meeting. He stopped Tawanchai with leg kicks in 52 seconds and outclassed Gabriel Pereira at The Inner Circle 15 last month. Noiri respects the evolution. He has also found what he believes is a psychological pattern in Liu’s performances that gives him a path to victory on home soil.
“It is a great opportunity for me. Because I fell short of expectations last time, I believe this is an opportunity to redeem myself,” he said.
“He has experienced a defeat once, and he has continued to grow since that fight. I think he is a good fighter. But he tends to get too emotional when he fights.”
