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Former ONE world title challenger and current first-ranked ONE Championship featherweight MMA contender ‘The Lion Killer’ Garry Tonon is fresh off an impressive first-round submission victory over former ONE featherweight and lightweight MMA world champion ‘The Situ-Asian’ Martin Nguyen last weekend.
The two featherweight elite met at ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru in a pivotal divisional showdown, and ‘The Lion Killer’ made the most of it.
Tonon made quick and easy work of Nguyen, taking the Vietnamese-Australian banger down swiftly to the mat and securing his back to fish out a rear-naked choke finish.
ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru was held at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan on Sunday, January 28th, and was broadcast live globally on pay-per-view via watch.onefc.com.
After the fight, Tonon talked to the media backstage in his post-fight interview and discussed a potential showdown with former adversary Thanh Le.
Tonon, in particular, was super impressed by Thanh Le’s heel hook finish of no.2-ranked Ilya Freymanov in his last fight to win the interim belt.
‘The Lion Killer’ said:
“Look at [Thanh Le’s] last win against Ilya where he pulled off a [heel hook]. It's one thing to use some jiu-jitsu to pass somebody's guard and take somebody's back, whatever the case may be but you know leg leg locks are pretty elaborate techniques. This is a tough thing to do to finish. To be fair maybe Ilya isn't very defensively sound with leglocks but nonetheless, to pull it out in a fight scenario you know when you had just gotten taken down [is impressive].”
Garry Tonon looking at being next in line for featherweight MMA world title shot
That being said, Garry Tonon is definitely looking to face the winner between reigning champion Tang Kai and interim titleholder Thanh Le, who attempt to unify the belts later this year.
He told veteran ONE Championship broadcast analyst Mitch ‘The Dragon’ Chilson in his post-fight interview in the ring:
“Guys, you know it’s inevitable to have that belt tied around my waist. Let’s see what these guys do out there.”
