ONE 160 Defeat Causes Former World Title Challenger To Lose Spot In Rankings

Singaporean standout Amir Khan seemingly had taken more than he bargained for following his heartbreaking loss at the hands of Malaysian spitfire Keanu Subba on the undercard of ONE 160 last Friday, August 26.

Khan, who once vied for the then-vacant ONE lightweight championship in a losing effort against Filipino superstar Eduard Folayang in November 2018, absorbed a shocking first-round knockout defeat to Subba in front of a partisan hometown crowd at the 12,000-capacity Singapore Indoor Stadium.

After withstanding his opponent's aggression and takedown attempts in the early going of the featherweight contest, Subba made sure he would be walking out with a statement victory as he hammered a solid left hook to the jaw of Khan and a follow-up right straight.

Subba threw two more hard blows for good measure, compelling referee Mohamad Sulaiman to step in and save Khan for further punishment.

The disappointing setback to Subba proved to be detrimental to Khan's stature in the Top Five of the promotion's featherweight rankings.

Khan, who entered the bout against Subba as the No. 5-ranked featherweight, gave an opening for Japanese stalwart Ryogo Takahashi to enter the standings and take his spot.

Coincidentally, Khan beat Takahashi in his featherweight return by way of split decision this past February to earn a seat in the rankings.

However, it appears that the independent panel of ONE Championship's official athlete rankings favored Takahashi over Subba to replace Khan in the Top Five due to the fact that the Japanese owns a first-round knockout win over the Malaysian.

Takahashi crossed paths with Subba in May 2019 and came out victorious in astonishing fashion.

At the moment, it seems that Subba has no plans of getting a rematch versus Takahashi in order to get the nod as a Top Five-ranked featherweight contender as he called out South Korea's Yoon Chang Min in his post-fight interview.

By the looks of it, Takahashi and Subba won't be getting a shot at the featherweight title anytime soon as both men sustained respective losses to Tang Kai, who successfully overthrew Thanh Le at ONE 160 to become the new division kingpin.

Despite relinquishing his possession of the gold-plated strap to Tang last Friday, Le's name remains in the Top Five as the No. 1 contender.

The aftermath of ONE 160 and ONE Prime Video 1 also saw shakeups in other divisional rankings under the Singapore-based combat sports outfit.

Adriano Moraes landed at No. 1 in the flyweight mixed martial arts (MMA) standings after losing the belt to Demetrious Johnson in their rematch.

Like Moraes, Ok Rae Yoon also garnered a consolation by occupying the No. 1 seat in the lightweight MMA rankings after yielding to Christian Lee in their second encounter for the title last Friday.

Meanwhile, Panpayak Jitmuangnon—who filled in for pound-for-pound king Rodtang Jitmuangnon in the semifinals of ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Grand Prix—moved up to No. 2 by virtue of his stunning knockout of Savvas Michael.