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Aung La Nsang was once a two-division ONE Championship titleholder. Both of his championship belts were stripped away by one man, Reiner de Ridder.
The first time that both fighters squared off in the cage was back in October 2020. In that bout, Nsang was submitted in the first round with a rear-naked choke and lost the middleweight title. That win also snapped Nsang's seven-fight winning streak.
Seven months later, Nsang met De Ridder again in ONE on TNT 4. This time around, the fight went the full five rounds and 'The Burmese Phyton' lost his light heavyweight title, with the judges awarding a unanimous decision victory to his Dutch counterpart.
Since then, Nsang has made his way back into the ONE Championship cage and returned to winning ways by knocking out Leandro Ataides in July. The former champion was challenged by Yushin Okami and both fighters verbally agreed on social media to meet each other soon after.
ONE Championship has yet to formalize the bout but looking beyond that, Nsang feels that he deserves a rematch with De Ridder.
In a recent interview, Nsang had this to say:
"In ONE Championship history, I’m one of the most dominant champions. I would like for them to give me a rematch. There are two mindsets when you’re defending, your mindset’s something, and when you’re conquering, when you’re attacking it’s a different mindset. My mindset is to get my belt back, to attack, and if I were to be matched up with Reinier again, it would be a different fight for sure."
Nsang has no bad blood with the reigning ONE champion
Even having been defeated twice and stripped of his belts, Nsang doesn't feel any hate towards De Ridder. He admits to losing both fights and looks at the silver lining to improve his craft.
"I don’t [but] he might. I don’t, my fans might have bad blood but I don’t," said Nsang when asked if he has bad blood with De Ridder. "I just see it like a puzzle that I have to solve, like somebody that’s going to make me a better person, a better mixed martial artist. I don’t care what people say, I don’t care. It doesn’t really bother me and I got to be level-headed and I got to be a good person foremost. There’s no bad blood."
The 36-year-old Nsang now has a professional MMA record of 27-12, with 13 knockouts, 12 submissions and two decisions. He has been competing in ONE Championship since June 2014 and has lost only three of his 15 total fights in the organization.
