“I feel like Ritu is still in the top five” - Tiffany Teo says a win over Ritu Phogat should land her in the rankings

Tiffany Teo is looking to make a statement at ONE on Prime Video 2 when she meets the returning Ritu ‘The Indian Tigress’ Phogat. ‘No Chill’ will make her atomweight debut against a very determined fighter who is hungry to get back in the win column.

‘The Indian Tigress’ used her elite wrestling skills to defeat Filipino standout Jenelyn Olsim and Chinese striker Meng Bo in ONE Women’s Atomweight World Grand Prix Championship, setting the stage for a clash against Stamp Fairtex in the tournament final. However, the Commonwealth Wrestling gold medalist suffered a shocking first-round submission loss to the Muay Thai star.

After being stopped for the first time in her MMA career, Phogat will certainly carry a massive chip on her shoulder as she welcomes Tiffany Teo to the division.

For Teo, a win over Phogat will put the atomweight division on notice and hopefully break her into the top five. Singaporean said that was the entire motivation for calling out ‘The Indian Tigress’ in the first place.

In an interview with ONE Championship just days out from their upcoming clash, Tiffany Teo revealed that she called out Phogat because she was in the atomweight top five at the time.

Unfortunately, that is not the case anymore, but ‘No Chill’ still believes a strong win over Phogat should get her into the rankings regardless.

“That’s the thing, when I first called Ritu out after my fight, that was when she was ranked in the top five. That was the very reason I called her out, because I wanted to fight someone who was in the top five. And then I don’t know what happened after I called her out, but she was out of the rankings and I saw other fighters in the top five... I feel like Ritu is still in the top five. I personally believe she belongs in the top five. I’m really surprised that she accepted my challenge and this fight is happening. So definitely, after this win, I’d claim that I’m one of the top contenders in the atomweight division.”

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Tiffany Teo is not impressed with Ritu Phogat’s mixed martial arts skills

Since her ONE Championship debut in 2019, Ritu Phogat has utilized her high-level wrestling to snag seven victories inside the circle and a spot in the Atomweight World Grand Prix finals. Despite, all of her accomplishments, Tiffany Teo is not impressed with the overall skills that ‘The Indian Tigress’ brings to the cage.

In an interview with ONE Championship, ‘No Chill’ was complimentary of Phogat’s wrestling ability. However, she does not believe the Indian scrapper has evolved to incorporate other aspects of her game that are needed to compete in the world of MMA.

"Ritu [Phogat] has been wrestling pretty much all her life. She’s from a family of good wrestlers, and there’s even a movie about her.”

Tiffany Teo continued:

“But if you talk about MMA as a whole, I feel like she hasn’t put it that well together because there’s more to MMA than just wrestling. You can be the best wrestler, but if you can’t close the distance, you’re not going to wrestle anyone, right?"