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#4. Bokang Masunyane - ONE Championship strawweight (8-0)
Weighing in at 125 pounds and standing at 5'1", ONE Championship's compact dynamo Bokang 'Little Giant' Masunyane is explosiveness personified.
Granted, there are a lot of explosive fighters on ONE Championship's strawweight roster. That includes Lito 'Thunder Kid' Adiwang and the champion Joshua 'The Passion' Pacio. None, however, match Masunyane's explosiveness in grappling.
With wrestling as his foundational style, 'Little Giant' runs through his opponents like a freight train at full speed. He manages to switch from striking to clinch battles to massive takedowns in the blink of an eye.
The stocky South African's dizzying grappling attacks make for exciting bouts but also allows him openings to exemplify his powerful strikes. His unforgettable head-kick knockout of Rene Catalan coming off a clinch is the perfect example of this.
It would be interesting to see him fight a gritty wrestler like Jarred 'The Monkey God' Brooks. We'd like to see if Masunyane can keep his dynamic style against a powerful and technical grappler. Brooks decimated a similarly explosive fighter in Lito Adiwang.
If Masunyane can overcome 'The Monkey God', he might be next in line for a title shot.
#3. Marcus 'Buchecha' Almeida - ONE Championship heavyweight (2-0)
Don't let his measley 2-0 MMA record fool you. Marcus 'Buchecha' Almeida has over 120 wins and 13 world championships in competitive jiu-jitsu. He earned the iconic recognition of being called by a singular name, 'Buchecha', due to his legendary status.
What makes 'Buchecha' special amongst all the other world champion grapplers venturing into MMA is how he's approached the game so far.
'Buchecha' showed tremendous respect towards all aspects of MMA. To study the nuances of the sport, he aligned himself with two of the top MMA teams in the world in American Kickboxing Academy and American Top Team.
By choosing to fight at ONE Championship, the Brazilian grappling legend also found the best organization to transition to MMA with. Jiu-jitsu competitions rarely encourage weight cutting due to the fact that most weigh-ins happen on the same day (if not minutes before) the fights happen.
Cutting water weight would be detrimental to fighters' performance, if not dangerous to their health. Thankfully, ONE Championship doesn't allow weight cutting and so 'Buchecha' chose the heavyweight division so he could properly transition to the sport.
Without having to worry about dehydrating himself, the jiu-jitsu ace can focus on training better and exploring his full MMA arsenal in the cage. Expect him to grapple and smash his way through the competition en route to a title shot in the near future.
