"Made his ONE debut 10 years ago" - ONE Championship shows pictures of Shinya Aoki then and now

'Tobikan Judan' Shinya Aoki has been a staple fighter of ONE Championship for close to a decade now. He made his debut in the organization in 2012 at the event ONE FC: Rise of Kings.

ONE Championship shared this fact on Twitter and said:

"2012 > 2022. [Shinya Aoki] made his ONE debut 10 years ago. Feel old yet? "Tobikan Judan" meets teen BJJ phenom Kade Ruotolo in a submission grappling bout next Friday! #ONE157. 20 May."

Aoki made his ONE debut against Arnaud Lepont, in which the Japanese-born fighter won at only 1:25 in the first round. He would go on to have many submission victories in his ONE career. This included notable wins over Kotetsu Boku, Kamal Shalorus, Eduard Folayang, and others.

Most recently, he fought on the 10-year anniversary event ONE X against fellow Japanese MMA legend 'Sexyama' Yoshihiro Akiyama. Aoki controlled the first round and nearly finished the fight. However, Akiyama would rally back and win this match with a second-round TKO stoppage.

Aoki will next compete in ONE 157 on May 20 in a submission grappling match against young phenom Brazilian jiu jitsu expert Kade Ruotolo.

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Shinya Aoki vs Kade Ruotolo at ONE 157

Shinya Aoki was once considered a young grappling phenom. He made his MMA debut in 2003 at the age of 20. He would win all of his first three MMA matches via an armbar submission stoppage in round one or two.

Now, Aoki has been competing for nearly 20 years in the sport with an impressive 47 victories. Of these 47 wins, 30 were by submission. He holds a black belt in both Jiu Jitsu and Judo.

His ONE 157 opponent will be Kade Ruotolo. This Jiu Jitsu phenom was born in the same year Aoki made his MMA debut, 2003. Ruotolo has picked up national titles in Jiu Jitsu even as a teenager.

ONE has hosted several submission grappling matches, none of which have hugely pleased the audience. These matches are a single 12-minute round and if no submissions happen in that time, then the match is declared a draw.

Shinya Aoki has been practicing martial arts his entire life and shows no signs of slowing down. In a 2019 interview with SportskeedaMMA he said:

“I’m at my happiest when I’m concentrating on being a martial artist. If I could just train all day and do martial arts, that would be awesome. I do not want to work in a regular job, I just want to concentrate on martial arts. I want to keep being a martial artist for as long as possible."