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British ONE bantamweight Muay Thai star Liam Harrison recently sat down with the South China Morning Post to discuss a few things about his career and recent fights in ONE Championship.
'Hitman', who was supposed to come out of a year-long hiatus to face John Lineker at ONE Fight Night 18 but had to pull out due to injury, spoke about the recent back-to-back losses of his former foe, former ONE bantamweight Muay Thai world champion Nong-O Hama.
Nong-O lost his belt to Jonathan Haggerty last year via KO and then suffered a similar loss to Nico Carrillo a few months later.
Harrison, who lost his world title bid against Nong-O back in 2022, said of the Thai living legend:
"He's getting old isn’t he? And after the knockout against Haggerty, that’s one of them type of knockouts where you just get a bit old overnight and your reflexes just aren't that good. Your head movement isn't that good and then you just suddenly slow down. I can relate to it because I'm a similar age to him and things start to just get that little bit slower and that's what's happened.”
Watch the full interview here:
Liam Harrison admits it hurts to see Nong-O suffer back-to-back KO losses
Although some people might find Liam Harrison harsh and overboard, he did express the pain he felt when one of the fighters looked up to suffer devastating losses consecutively.
Liam Harrison said:
“I hope he doesn't take any fights against any of these youngsters like that anymore because I don't want to see him get knocked out like that. It's not nice to see when you're watching a legend get knocked out and after especially everything that he's done for the sport and the run he’s had as a champion, what he did in the stadiums.”
At the end of the day, Harrison expressed his humanity here. He, more than most people, understands the harsh realities of fighting at his age and sees the bleak future for Nong-O if he keeps fighting younger foes.
This remark is not coming from a place of malice, but a place of love and care.
