“I’m ready for all three rounds” - Timofey Nastyukhin is expecting an all-out war with Dagi Arslanaliev

No. 5-ranked ONE Championship lightweight contender Timofey Nastyukhin is expecting a full-fledged war when he meets No. 3-ranked lightweight Dagi Arslanaliev in the Circle this Friday.

Timofey Nastyukhin and Dagi Arslanaliev are scheduled to battle at ONE: Winter Warriors, which broadcasts live from the Singapore Indoor Stadium on December 3. The bout will be a rematch of their 2018 showdown, where Arslanaliev finished Timofey Nastyukhin within two minutes of the very first round.

There is no doubt that Timofey Nastyukhin has been eager to run this fight back, hoping to even the score.

Speaking to ONE Championship in a recent interview, Timofey Nastyukhin explained what had gone wrong in the first fight.

“To be frank with you, everything was going really well until the missed punch. Once I missed that punch, the rest of you guys saw what happened during the fight. It doesn’t really affect me much [now]. It happened in the past and now we just need to flip the page and move forward.”

“I feel that I would definitely win in this fight, I’m prepared for that but definitely, we will see how the fight will go. I didn’t fight for quite a while but it doesn't really say anything. I think, in my period, when I had that downtime, I even came out stronger so it could be the case for Dagi as well.”

When asked how he predicts the fight will go, Timofey Nastyukhin kept it real and conservative.

“It’s not a great thing to look ahead and predict something, I’m ready for all three rounds and I’m just ready to fight all this. We will see during the fight.”

---

Timofey Nastyukhin versus Dagi Arslanaliev, the two most dangerous lightweights in ONE

Timofey Nastyukhin and Dagi Arslanaliev represent the ONE lightweight division’s most dangerous dark horses. Both men have a penchant for scoring highlight reel knockouts, and this rematch is all but guaranteed fireworks.

Timofey Nastyukhin may have suffered a knockout loss to his Dagestani rival a few years ago, but the hard-hitting Russian says he’s a calmer and wiser competitor heading into this rematch.

Following his defeat to Arslanaliev, Nastyukhin bounced back with a scintillating knockout victory over former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and a decision over former top-five ranked lightweight Pieter Buist.

The stakes are incredibly high in this pivotal lightweight showdown. The winner of this fight could face former ONE lightweight world champion Christian ‘The Warrior’ Lee or even earn a title shot against reigning champion, South Korea’s, Ok Rae Yoon.