Chihiro Sawada to face unbeaten Anastasia Nikolakakos for vacant ONE atomweight title

Sawada will bid to become the first Japanese woman to win a ONE world title when she meets the 7-0 Canadian at Yokohama Buntai on Wednesday 2 December.

Chihiro Sawada will fight Anastasia Nikolakakos for the vacant ONE Women's Atomweight MMA World Championship at ONE SAMURAI 6 at Yokohama Buntai on Wednesday 2 December, onefc.com announced. The five-round bout is the first fight confirmed for the card.

Victory would make Sawada the first Japanese woman to win a ONE world title. The 28-year-old former Shooto atomweight champion is 12-1 and has won four in a row since the only defeat of her career, in January 2025.

That run began with a first-round armbar of Macarena Aragon at ONE Fight Night 33, followed by a unanimous decision over Itsuki Hirata. This year she handed Natalie Salcedo her first professional loss, then submitted Ayaka Miura with another first-round armbar at ONE SAMURAI 1 to earn the title shot. Five of her wins have come by submission.

Nikolakakos, a 36-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt based in Toronto, is unbeaten in seven professional fights. On her ONE debut she put Victoria Souza down, took mount and finished her with right hands at 4:59 of the first round. She followed that with a split-decision win over Jihin Radzuan at ONE Fight Night 45 in Bangkok in July.

Radzuan is a shared opponent: she was one of three fighters Sawada beat at the start of her ONE career, along with Sanaz Fayazmanesh and Noelle Grandjean.

Both women do their best work on the mat. Sawada's game is built on wrestling, while Nikolakakos relies on takedowns and ground control, using top position to land strikes as she did against Souza.

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