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Former two-division ONE world champion Martin Nguyen hopes to get the chance to run back his October 2020 clash with Thanh Le. This Sunday, January 28, ‘The Situ-Asian’ will return to the Circle when ONE Championship heads to Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan, for a loaded ONE 165 card.
Looking to earn his way back into the featherweight world title mix, the Sydney native will meet submission specialist and one-time title challenger Garry Tonon.
With the winner potentially moving on to face the winner of ONE 166’s showdown between featherweight champ Tang Kai and interim titleholder Thanh Le, Martin Nguyen was asked which he would rather face during an appearance on the From The Stands podcast.
“For me, who I'd like to see win? I'd like to see kind of Vietnamese people succeed, you know,” Nguyen said. “And I want Thanh Le to win, I want myself to win, and give the fans what they want in that rematch.”
Le scored a vicious third-round knockout of Nguyen at ONE: Inside The Matrix to claim the featherweight world championship. ‘The Situ-Asian’ has been chomping at the bit for a rematch ever since.
Can Martin Nguyen pick up where he left off in his last outing?
Thanh Le successfully defended the title against Garry Tonon before suffering a unanimous decision loss to Tang Kai at ONE 160.
Since then, Le earned a stunning first-round submission victory over Ilya Freymanov to solidify his spot as the division’s top-ranked contender.
As for Martin Nguyen, the Vietnamese-Australian fan favorite has struggled to find the win column in recent years, but ‘The Situ-Asain’ had a true return to form in his last outing against Leonardo Casotti.
Will Nguyen take out one of the promotion’s most featured grapplers and punch his ticket to another title fight, or will ‘The Lion Killer’ add another highlight-reel finish to his resume in The Land of the Rising Sun?
ONE 165 airs live on Sunday, January 28, via global pay-per-view at watch.onefc.com.
