“He’s the best wrestler I’ve ever faced” – Danny Kingad remains humble in defeat after loss to Kairat Akhmetov

Danny Kingad closed the calendar year for ONE Championship in a showdown with Kairat Akhmetov in the final match of 2021.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t pick up the win and settled for a decision loss to the Kazakhstani fighter, effecting a 2-2 performance for Team Lakay at ONE: Winter Warriors II.

Despite all the pre-fight back and forth between ‘The King’ and his rival, the actual match played out as expected, with Danny Kingad looking to stay on his feet and ‘The Kazakh’ trying his best to drag the match to the ground.

Through three rounds, however, Danny Kingad mustered very little offense as Akhmetov imposed his will by taking the Filipino warrior down and staying on top of him. By the time the final bell rang, Akhmetov let out a scream as a dejected Danny Kingad stood up to shake his opponent’s hand.

Later, a unanimous decision win was made official and Akhmetov’s hand was raised in victory.

During the post-fight interview with ONE Championship, Danny Kingad was in good spirits after sharing the Circle with the former ONE flyweight world champion.

“I’m happy that I was finally able to fight him. I really felt how strong his wrestling skills were. I think looking back to all my past opponents, I could say that he’s the best wrestler I’ve ever faced. He was born to wrestle and his game at that time was that of a wrestler’s.”

When asked if there were any lessons he learned from the fight, Danny Kingad admitted there were a lot and vowed to use it to improve his game further.

“There are a lot of specific learnings that I can apply now that our match finally happened. I think I’ll go home first and review the game, and study how to defend that level of wrestling and how to take down such opponents. I also really want to adopt some of his techniques.”

---

Danny Kingad breaks down his loss

The third round saw Danny Kingad mount some offense to finally offer a glimmer of hope to his loyal fans. It may have been his best round of the match and he agreed that he felt good during the five-minute frame.

“I felt like he was already tired by the second round, but he powered through because he didn’t want me to get back on my feet. I’m happy that I had the chance to stand up in the third round and was able to strike well. I can’t explain it, but I know that I still have a lot to improve.”

Akhmetov came in clutch and was able to lock in a clinch to neutralize Danny Kingad’s attacks.

The Team Lakay veteran admitted that he knew what he had to do, but failed to execute, which ultimately doomed his chance at stealing the victory in the last round.

“I wasn’t able to execute my game plan at that time. I felt like I wasn’t myself in that moment. I think I should have created space. I think I really need to train [following] my game plan, so I’ll be back to basics.”