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Jonathan Di Bella knows that even though he has 26 pounds of gold wrapped around his waist, he'll still be the underdog against Prajanchai in their inevitable rematch.
After coming up short against the two-sport Thai titleholder last year, Di Bella set the stage for a sequel scrap after scoring a big win over Sam-A Gaiyanghadao at ONE 172 to capture the ONE interim strawweight kickboxing world championship.
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Now, he'll have the chance to turn his interim title into undisputed gold when he meets ONE strawweight kickboxing king Prajanchai later this year.
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Looking ahead to their yet-to-be-announced showdown, Di Bella still sees himself as a challenger determined to dethrone the reigning champion.
"But in my mind, I know I still got a task to do—to take the belt from the champ," Di Bella said in an interview with Nick Atkin. "So I’m still the underdog, he’s the champion. So I gotta take his belt."
Jonathan Di Bella is willing to defend his ONE interim strawweight kickboxing world title
The top item on Jonathan Di Bella's combat sports to-do list is to avenge his lone loss under the ONE Championship banner by beating Prajanchai and unifying his interim belt with the Thai superstar's gold.
However, if for some reason Prajanchai is looking to pursue other opportunities in the interim—no pun intended—Di Bella is more than happy to put his belt on the line against another top contender.
"Yeah, I don’t mind. I don’t mind," Di Bella said when asked about defending his interim title against someone else before fighting Prajanchai. "Yeah, I don’t mind defending my interim title.
"If he’s still going to be the champion and, you know, he wants to go to a different division, I don’t mind defending my interim title."
It's nice to see that Di Bella would rather stay busy than wait around for Prajanchai, but we can all agree that a second meeting between the two is the fight that we all want to see.
If you missed any of the action, you can watch the full ONE 172: Takeru vs. Rodtang replay on demand via watch.onefc.com.
