WATCH: Former rivals Shinya Aoki, Yoshihiro Akiyama patch things up backstage at ONE 165 in Tokyo

The world of combat sports has seen some of the most intense and emotional moments during fight night, but even rarer is when two heated rivals come together to bury the hatchet.

For the better part of the past 20 years, MMA legends Yoshihiro Akiyama and Shinya Aoki have been beefing with each other.

It even came to a point that Aoki publicly called out Akiyama to step inside the ONE Circle and after some wait, it all came to a head at ONE X in March 2022.

‘Tobikan Judan’ rushed out to an early dominance of Akiyama as he negated the Japanese-South Korean’s feared striking acumen by taking hold of his back and even nearly submitted him with a rear-naked choke.

However, ‘Sexyama’ came back with a storm to knock out his eternal rival in the second round as a raucous crowd inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium shared in Akiyama’s triumph by showering him with cheers.

Nearly two years since their epic clash, both stars competed at ONE 165 this past Sunday, January 28, and ONE Championship shared on its Instagram page that they are on much better terms nowadays:

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How Aoki and Akiyama fared at ONE 165

Akiyama’s special rules bout with Nieky Holzken came first on the card and while there was hope that Akiyama could hold out, Holzken’s boxing skills were just too much to overcome as he succumbed to a first-round knockout.

In Aoki’s case, his matchup with Sage Northcutt was changed to him fighting John Lineker after ‘Super’ Sage pulled out due to his cornermen having issues with their visas.

Aoki would win the openweight bout with ‘Hands of Stone’ via first-round submission.