Kill Cliff FC’s Aung La N Sang is taking on one of his longtime heroes Saturday night at the ONE 163 tilt at Singapore Indoor Stadium: Yushin Okami.
“He’s one of the Asian mixed martial artists I looked up to in the last 10 years and he’s fought in different high-level organizations, so he’s a great one to test myself with,” the Burmese Python told ONE FC.
But will that cloud the middleweight’s judgement when it comes time to close things out? Not hardly.
“I’m going to look to break him. As soon as we touch gloves, I’m going to look to break him.”
N Sang, a former ONE Middleweight and Light Heavyweight World Champion, is 27-13 but coming off three losses in his last four fights. Okami is 36-14 for his career.
What does N Sang’s opponent have to say about the upcoming fight?
“I have been fighting at welterweight in ONE, but what I left out and what I wanted to do in ONE was to fight Aung La N Sang who won two weight classes as an Asian,” he said at a press conference.
“I have watched him closely, respected him, and thought he was great. I moved up to middleweight to fight him. I thought this was the best thing to do in ONE. I asked on social media, and Aung La N Sang and [ONE chariman] Chatri [Sityodtong] eventually agreed to set up the fight.”
A lot of respect in the Octagon Saturday. You can see it at 5 a.m. ET at watch.onefc.com. Set your clock.
Meanwhile, also on Saturday but at a far more decent hour—starting at 4 p.m. ET—Kill Cliff FC’s Andre Fialho will fight for the fifth time this year—the first fighter to do that in 2022—when he steps into the Octagon to face Muslim Salikhov.
It’s one of the welterweight bouts for UFC’s Fight Night 215 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. You can see it on ESPN+.
The main card bout should be a good one: Fialho is 16-5 to Salkhov’s 18-3 pro record. Both are coming off losses that they will certainly want to redeem.
