Garry Tonon's consistent training for Thanh Le fight has yielded multiple improvements

Garry Tonon finds himself in the longest training camp of his career leading up to his upcoming championship bout. The grappling phenom believes the long camp has helped him improve on several key skills for the biggest fight of his MMA stint so far.

Earlier this month, ONE Championship announced that Tonon’s much anticipated ONE featherweight world title challenge against reigning champion Thanh Le will finally happen at ONE: Lights Out, set for March 11.

In a recent interview with ONE Championship, Tonon shared some details about his extensive training camp. He said:

“I've been preparing for Thanh Le for so long, that a lot of my training is fairly consistent. At this point, we kind of have regimented drills that we practice every single day that are to prepare me for this fight specifically, like there's things that I literally do every day that are not just a part of my MMA training, but a part of getting ready to fight Thanh Le. I don't know if I want to necessarily say we've gotten it down to a science because I haven't fought him yet, so it's hard to say for sure if we really nailed it, but it feels that way.”

The match was originally scheduled for ONE: X, the promotion’s 10-year anniversary show, in December 2021. Extraneous circumstances forced the event to be moved to a later date, which has been revealed to be March 26 of this year.

Instead of being part of the milestone show, Tonon’s clash with Le will headline the event preceding it. Despite his particular preparations for the reigning champion, ‘The Lion Killer’ still made a point to work on other aspects of his game. He added:

“I definitely think that I've made a lot of improvements. I feel like my feinting has improved, I feel like just my ability to work out at different stances has improved recently. Kicking and blocking to be honest, like just guarding like in different types of guards, because he's such a dangerous rear hand and high kicker, that it's incredibly important for me to have a good guard for this fight. I think that's improved quite a bit, you know.”

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Garry Tonon promises to be a different fighter

Garry Tonon has racked up six wins in his professional MMA career and has shown vast improvements in every fight so far. For his upcoming bout, he promises to show even more.

Tonon is a living legend in the grappling world, having won multiple titles in Brazilian jiu-jitsu all over the world. The American has shown that he can be a multi-dimensional fighter in his first few bouts in MMA. He claims that the long training camp has allowed him to evolve even more as a fighter, saying:

“It's just like a person with completely different skills because it's just been so long and I'm such a new athlete that there's a lot of progress I've made.”

Garry Tonon's championship bout against Thanh Le will be the champion's first attempt at defending his title. Le defeated Martin Nguyen to win the belt with his fourth straight knockout victory. It will be interesting to see who can assert their game and emerge victorious when these two finally meet in the Circle.