Thanh Le, 38, is ONE Championship‘s new interim world champion in mixed martial arts in the featherweight division. Fighting out of Metairie, Louisiana, United States, the Vietnamese-American MMA fighter was one of the winners at “ONE Fight Night 15“.
Featuring one submission grappling match, two kickboxing contests, two Muay Thai bouts and five MMA fights, “ONE Fight Night 15” was held at the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on October 7, 2023. In the main event of the evening, Le and Ilya Freymanov, 27, of Krasnodar, Russia competed for the interim ONE Featherweight World Championship belt.
Herb Dean served as the referee of the title bout. He stopped the fight after 1 minute and 2 seconds in the first round after Le submitted Freymanov via heel hook.
This is Freymanov’s first loss in ONE Championship and third fight in the promotion. He now holds a professional MMA record of 12 wins and 3 losses.
On the other hand, Le now has 14 wins and 3 losses. The fighter from Metairie joined ONE Championship in 2019 and defeated Russia’s Yusup Saadulaev in Jakarta, Indonesia and Japan’s Kotesu Boku in Bangkok in the promotion that year.
On January 10, 2020, “ONE: A New Tomorrow” took place in Bangkok where Le knocked out Japan’s Ryogo Takahashi. On October 30, 2020, Le became the new ONE Featherweight World Champion by defeating Vietnamese-Australian MMA fighter Martin Nguyen, the defending champion, via technical knockout.
On March 11, 2022, Le successfully defended the title at “ONE: Lights Out” in Kallang, Singapore by knocking out his American challenger Garry Tonon. On August 26, 2022, China’s Tang Kai became the new champion by defeating Le via unanimous decision at “ONE: 160” in Kallang.
Kai and Le were supposed to have their rematch at “ONE Fight Night 12” at the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium on July 15, 2023 but it was cancelled after the defending champion was injured before the fight night. ONE Championship has yet to announce the details about their rematch.
CONAN Daily 