Thanh Le viciously knocked out Garry Tonon to retain his ONE featherweight title at ONE: Lights Out on Friday in Singapore.
Striking ace Le faced off against grappling master Tonon, and found himself in dangerous waters early when “The Lion Killer” managed to grab a hold of the champion’s leg and worked to secure a submission.
Le stayed calm and did enough to avoid Tonon’s submission threat, then punished the challenger in stunning fashion, knocking him out clean with a vicious barrage of punches to retain his title in style. The whole fight was done and dusted in just 56 seconds.
Le’s performance was an emphatic demonstration of his ability to deal with Tonon’s grappling threat before turning to his own fight-ending weapon, his punch power.
It meant that Le secured his first title defense as ONE featherweight champion, improved his career record to 13-2 and handed Tonon the first loss of his mixed martial arts career. It also continued Le’s perfect run in ONE Championship, with his record showing five fights, five wins and five knockouts.
Lineker flattens Fernandes to capture bantamweight strap
John Lineker showed just why he’s called “Hands of Stone” as a humungous left hook starched Bibiano Fernandes to capture the ONE bantamweight title.
In a wild opening round, Fernandes felt Lineker’s heavy punch power as the champion was twice stunned by big power shots from “Hands of Stone.” Bu then, as Lineker loaded up in search of a finish, Fernandes dropped the challenger with a huge counter left hook.
Round 2 saw Fernandes turn to his wrestling and grappling in a bid to nullify Lineker’s striking advantage. But, when the bout returned to the feet mid-way through the round, Lineker loaded up again and hit the jackpot with a massive left hook that sent Fernandes crashing to the canvas for a title-winning KO.
‘The Situ-Asian’ bounces back
Former two-division ONE champion Martin Nguyen returned to the stellar form that saw him capture titles in two weight classes as he finished Ukrainian contender Kirill Gorobets in the third round to bounce back into the win column and end a three-year run without a victory.
Nguyen’s last win came back in August of 2019 against Koyomi Matsushima, but he lost his featherweight title to Thanh Le in 2020, then was stunningly finished in the first round by Jae Woong Kim last September.
But “The Situ-Asian” looked back to his best as he systematically dismantled Gorobets to hand the Ukrainian only the second loss of his career.
After his win, Nguyen thanked his family for inspiring him to come back and chase ONE Championship glory again.
“It’s been three years since I got a win. I was at my lwoest of lows. Even contemplating if I had what it takes,” he said.
“And I’ll be straight-up honest, because I’m honest from the heart, man. If it was not for my wife and my kids, I tell you what, I would not be here today. I tell you that.”
Silva frustrated after premature stoppage
Former ONE strawweight champion Alex Silva was left bitterly disappointed after a very swift intervention by the referee at the start of the second round of his bout with Adrian Mattheis.
Silva totally dominated the entirety of the first round against Mattheis as he bossed the exchanges on the mat throughout the opening five minutes of the matchup.
But controversy followed in the opening seconds of Round 2 when Mattheis connected with a huge right hand to Silva’s chin that dropped the former champion to the canvas.
It was a big, clean shot, but Silva recovered immediately and was in the process of scrambling as referee Mohamad Sulaiman dived in to end the bout. In fact, the official followed Silva to the mat so quickly he gave himelf no opportunity to assess Silva’s condition.
Mattheis erupted with joy as he celebrated the biggest win of his career while a frustrated Silva shook his head, did push-ups and protested in vain after what looked like a very premature stoppage.