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Despite winning his latest Muay Thai fight against Liao Shixu last June 6 at ONE Fight Night 32 with a comfortable unanimous decision nod from the judges, Tagir Khalilov has shifted his focus to returning to kickboxing.
Speaking to veteran journalist Nick Atkin in a post-fight interview, Khalilov said that he wants to improve his position as the No.5-rated flyweight kickboxing contender and compete in more matches under the ruleset, as he declared:
"I think you know and everyone knows that I don't care about opponents. I have a lot of top fighters in front of me. Of course, I want to climb up, and normally I want kickboxing fights because I'm No.5 in the ranking and I want to climb up. And that's why I want the kickboxing fight."
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Watch Tagir Khalilov's interview here:
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'Samingpri' only has one kickboxing match under his belt in ONE Championship, and it happened during his promotional debut in February 2021 at ONE: Fists of Fury, where he pushed the former ONE Muay Thai world champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon to three rounds of war.
However, Khalilov absorbed a tough split decision loss to 'Iron Man' and has since fought under the Muay Thai ruleset in his next eight fights in the world's largest martial arts organization and accumulated a 4-4 win-loss card.
Tagir Khalilov targets a kickboxing match against Taiki Naito next after his latest triumph at ONE Fight Night 32
The 32-year-old Russian athlete has doubled down on his willingness to fight in kickboxing once more, and even named Taiki Naito as his next potential opponent in ONE Championship.
Khalilov said that he wants to face the 'Silent Sniper', especially since he also won his fight against Johan Estupinan during the same card at ONE Fight Night 32. He told Nick Atkin during the same post-fight interview:
"Naito called me out, he told me to come fight [under] kickboxing rules. I accepted, but they gave him a Muay Thai fight. I hope he wins this fight, and we can fight with him in kickboxing rules."
North American viewers with an active Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action at ONE Fight Night 32 via the free event replay.
