Tang Kai reigns supreme in the featherweight MMA division, and he wants every challenger to know that he is ready for any of them. At ONE 166: Qatar earlier this month, the Chinese warrior unified the ONE Featherweight MMA World Championship against interim world titleholder Thanh Le in an epic rematch of their 2022 encounter for the division’s top prize.
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While their initial meeting went to the judges’ scorecards – the first of Le’s professional career – their latest match did not last as long as both of them promised.
Tang Kai sets sights on future challengers
The Sunkin International Fight Club representative finished his rival in the third round with under 30 seconds left as he rained down punches on his opponent after he caught Le with a huge looping right hand. In an interview with ONE, Tang shared that it was his team’s strategy to claim a more decisive victory this time around in order to silence doubters about his reign.
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“The strategy was to give him pressure to break his rhythm – and then finish him.I must thank my team and coaches because they helped me make tactics to finish the match. I felt really good to win a match by knockout that I’ve been waiting for over a year to have,” he continued.I showed my power this time to the people who doubted me before.” he said.
He now looks ahead to potential challengers to his reign, with the most obvious choice being #2-ranked Garry Tonon.’The Lion Killer’ picked up a huge win over former two-division World Champion Martin Nguyen at ONE 165 in Tokyo this past January to cement his place as a challenger in waiting. However, Tonon’s feat seems to have not impressed Tang.
Kai vows to finish ‘The Lion Killer’
Tang Kai seems to have much more expectations from ‘The Lion Killer’ but his last match seems to have disappointed him. “He’s very good at jiu-jitsu, but his striking skill is weaker. I’m always ready to fight with any style, any person.[His grappling] won’t affect me. I’m going to KO him.” he said.
Meanwhile, Tang is also open to facing one of the greats in the promotion of Nguyen. While ‘The Situ-Asian’ is coming off a loss, Tang believes that the Vietnamese-Australian will still be able to put on a show against him. “I really want to fight Martin Nguyen because he was the first two-division ONE World Champion. Although he’s been losing recently, I want him to win a couple of fights and challenge me, and I think it’s going to be a really good and impressive fight,” he said.
He also had some fighting words against former ONE Featherweight Kickboxing World Champion Superbon Singha Mawynn, as he dared the Thai star to step into his world. “I think Superbon is a bit arrogant because he says he can fight in MMA with a bit of practice. I’d have to let him know what MMA is, and I’ll let him sleep on the ground,” he said.
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Edited by
Yeswanth Praveen