A fierce rivalry will have another chapter written at ONE Championship’s historic first event in the Middle East. On Friday, March 1, divisional king Tang Kai and interim titleholder Thanh Le will clash to unify the ONE Featherweight MMA World Championship at ONE 166: Qatar, which is set to take place at the Lusail Sports Arena.
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It will be the second time the pair has met, with Tang holding a 1-0 advantage in the series after he handed Le his first loss in the world’s largest martial arts organization at ONE 160 in August 2022. The Chinese phenom won the featherweight MMA strap that evening, ending Le’s reign and halting his five-bout win streak, which included a 100% finishing rate.
Tang Kai has defeated some of the best
For his part, Tang had defeated six of the toughest contenders in the featherweight MMA division to earn his shot at Le’s gold, and he showed his fight IQ by keeping his distance against the Vietnamese-American and inflicting damage via his dangerous leg kicks.
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This game plan significantly affected Le’s knockout ability, and the unanimous decision win crowned Tang the first male MMA World Champion from China. Since then, Le has been hungry to run it back as he feels that he let fans down with his performance, but he has had to wait some time as Tang hasn’t been able to defend the World Title due to injury.
However, while he was waiting, the 50/50 and MidCity MMA standout got the chance to compete for the interim crown against a fellow ranked opponent in Ilya Freymanov. The pair met this past October, and despite the Russian’s best efforts, it was Le who shined.
Known for his powerful strikes, he shocked the world by showcasing an improved ground game and winning the match and the belt via submission. He will now look to unify the World Title and retake his seat atop ONE’s stacked featherweight MMA division on March 1.
The Qatar card looks great
The contest between Tang and Le joins a stacked card in Qatar, which already includes a ONE Middleweight MMA World Title showdown between Reinier de Ridder and Anatoly Malykhin and a ONE Strawweight MMA World Title battle between Jarred Brooks and Joshua Pacio.
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Clearly, ONE is making big moves with stacked cards in the coming year. Malykhin has had an interesting year of his own while Jarred Brooks has won his last match against Roberto Sanchez. Will the two come out on top against their opponents? What are your predictions?
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Yeswanth Praveen