Thanh Le, a former world champion in the featherweight division of ONE Mixed Martial Arts, is well aware of the dangers involved in taking on such a dangerous opponent as Ilya Freymanov on such short notice. However, he affirmed that in the long run, everything will be well worth it.
After losing the featherweight championship to Tang Kai of China in August of last year, the American-Vietnamese boxer, who is now 38 years old, was at first hoping to face him in a rematch. Tang Kai is from China. After suffering a knee injury, the defending champion is unable to participate in the competition, which is unfortunate.
Ilya Freymanov stepped in at the last minute to replace Thanh Le in the fight for the interim ONE featherweight championship that will take place at ONE Fight Night 15 on Prime Video on October 6 in Bangkok. The fight will be broadcast on Prime Video.
The athlete from 50/50 and MidCity MMA discussed the decision to compete against Freymanov in an interview with ONE Championship. He explained why he believes the fight will be worthwhile for him despite the potential dangers involved.
“So why is it that I find the interim title to be appealing? The additional currency. And obviously, I’m going to have to fight Ilya, who is one of the greatest in the division, who has already defeated a former champion who had the title for a long time, who suffered an injury and knocked out another great fighter. He is a risky and highly difficult opponent to face. But we have to be astute about this, and we have to comprehend that the gold strap is equivalent to additional cash in the years to come.
“We’ve got to have an incentive for a short camp fight for an opponent replacement and somebody that isn’t the guy I originally wanted to fight, which was to get my belt back,” the commentator said. “We’ve got to have a short camp fight for an opponent replacement.” Therefore, there is a brief summary of where I am at the moment.
Thanh Le had an impressive winning streak going when he was knocked out by Tang Kai. He had won the previous five fights in a row via knockout.
Ilya Freymanov has had a successful start to his career in ONE Championship (ONE), having won his first two fights through first-round knockout in all of them.
In September 2022, the 27-year-old Russian finished former two-division ONE world champion Martin Nguyen through technical knockout (knee strikes), and in June of this year, he forced Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg of Mongolia to submit via rear-naked choke. Both of these victories occurred in Russia.
ONE Fight Night 15 will be held in the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium, and existing Prime Video members in North America will not have to pay anything more to watch the event live and for primetime in the United States.
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