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Welcome to today's edition of the daily Sportskeeda ONE Championship News Roundup, where we present the promotion's most important stories.
Today we’ll discuss Martin Nguyen getting plenty of motivation from close friend Aung La N Sang, Danielle Kelly expecting Ayaka Miura to be similar to Mei Yamaguchi, and Sage Northcutt detailing how contracting COVID-19 complicated his return.
#3. Martin Nguyen motivated by his friend Aung La N Sang’s recent success
Former two-division world champion Martin Nguyen wants nothing more than to re-establish himself as an absolute force in ONE Championship, and he feels that he’s not short of inspiration to do so.
Nguyen, who once held both the ONE featherweight and lightweight world titles, looked at how his close friend Aung La N Sang captured two crazy wins these past few months.
In an interview with South China Morning Post, ‘The Situ-Asian’ shared that Aung La’s resurgence was a boost of confidence for him heading into his fight against Shamil Gasanov at ONE Fight Night 7 on Prime Video:
“Going into training the next day after seeing him knock out [Yushin] Okami and [Gilberto] Galvao, man you just want to hope for the best and run it along as well.
Aung La, who once ruled as the ONE middleweight and light heavyweight world champion, is coming off consecutive first-round knockout wins over Okami in November 2022 and Galvao in January 2023.
Watch Nguyen's interview below:
#2. Danielle Kelly says facing Ayaka Miura could be similar to facing Mei Yamaguchi
Danielle Kelly hasn’t had it easy since starting her ONE Championship career in early 2022.
The submission grappling phenom has had to tussle with absolute masters in Mei Yamaguchi and Mariia Molchanova, and she’s once again set to face another dangerous opponent in Ayaka Miura.
Kelly, though, feels that she’ll be in some sort of deja vu when she faces Miura at ONE Fight Night 7 at Bangkok’s iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium on February 24.
In an interview with SCMP, the rising ONE Championship star noted how Miura could be quite similar to Yamaguchi.
“I think there would be a couple of similarities. I think she's going to be a little heavier than me. Mei was really strong, especially for a small, like she's small like, height-wise, she's smaller. But she felt really strong. Even trying to get her to engage with me was a bit challenging.”
Miura, who’s a natural strawweight, has four submission wins in ONE Championship and once challenged Xiong Jing Nan for the ONE women’s strawweight world title in January of last year.
Nevertheless, Kelly is riding off an insane momentum after an impressive debut performance against Yamaguchi in March and a submission win over Molchanova in November last year.
Watch Danielle's interview below:
#1. Sage Northcutt explains how contracting COVID-19 complicated and delayed his return
Sage Northcutt is finally set to return to the circle on May 5 when he takes on Ahmed Mujtaba at ONE Fight Night 10 on Prime Video in ONE Championship’s first on-site US card.
However, his bout against Mujtaba wasn’t supposed to be his return fight, and he was instead set to come way back in April 2021 against Japanese legend Shinya Aoki at ONE on TNT IV.
That match, however, didn’t push through after Northcutt got COVID-19 and had to deal with the virus’ lingering effects.
During his interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, ‘Super’ Sage confirmed that the virus had so much of an impact that he couldn’t even train for the match against Aoki:
“I had to sit at home and that was the hardest thing, sitting still and not doing anything. I think that’s what really got me. Being so active all the time, sitting around for several days not doing anything whatsoever, feeling super sick. I ended up getting a blood clot. That took a little bit of time, the blood thinners, trying to make that go away.”
Catch Northcutt's interview below:
ONE Fight Night 10, as well as all of ONE Championship's Fight Night cards, is available live and for free to all Prime Video subscribers in North America.
