ONE Friday Fights 22 - 2023-06-23
Two title fights on a tremendously entertaining ONE Friday SUPER SHOW! Don't miss this one!
ONE Friday Fights 22 - 2023-06-23
Lumpinee Boxing Stadium, Bangkok, Thailand
The quarterly BIG ONE is here. 13 weeks ago, ONE put a Regian Eersel title defense on Friday Fights, and this week there’s an interim Muay Thai title fight as well as a Cursed Heavyweight MMA Title Unification Fight.
Prajanchai was last seen in the co-main event of ONE Friday Fights 1 and has an incredible 339-52 record at age 27. He also has a majority decision title win two years ago against his opponent tonight, Sam-A. Sam-A appeared on the last big OFF show, knocking out Ryan Sheehan. His record is an even more incredible 373-48, though he is 39 years old. Quite a title fight when both of your fighters have about 400 fights. In fact, Sam-A was the first champion in this division, he lost the title to Prajanchai, who then lost it to Joseph Lasiri. There is some sort of political posturing going on in ONE, and it has lead to this fight being a 5-rounder that is creating an interim title.
That strange tale is still not as weird and complicated as the road to the night’s other title bout. Arjan Bhullar has not fought since two years ago when he won the title over Brandon Vera, a year after that fight was originally scheduled. In the last four years, Bhullar has fought twice, while four other opportunities for those two fights and his fight tonight were rescheduled. Vera was a warm body opponent for Bhullar to challenge, in that Vera hadn’t defended his belt for three years before the fight.
Anatoly Malykhin is the undefeated interim champion that also absolutely destroyed the heralded 16-0 double champion Reinier de Ridder last time out to win the light heavyweight title. He is a huge favorite, with the current odds giving him about an 85% chance of winning. Understandably so, as Bhullar has no impressive wins on his resume, even tilting the scale by the overall quality of heavyweight MMA.
ONE Muay Thai: Regular fights 3 rounds of 3 minutes, title fights 5 rounds of 3 minutes. Scored on the 10-Point Must System, but judges must declare a winner if the points are even at the end of the fight. 3 knockdowns in a round is a TKO. Elbows allowed, no throws, no grappling. Fighters fight in the 4 oz. MMA gloves instead of boxing gloves. ONE referees tend to break up the clinch almost immediately instead of letting the fighters work out of it.
ONE MMA: Regular fights 3 rounds of 5 minutes, title fights 5 rounds of 5 minutes. Bout scored in its entirety, not round-by-round. Knees to the head of a grounded opponent are legal, soccer kicks are not.
The show is located here:
Due to TV timing in Thailand, they sent out the main event as the next-to-last fight.
Fights highlighted in bold were ones that I found particularly entertaining.
Part 1
“King Kong Warrior” Fan Rong (19-4) vs. Shamil Erdogan (8-0) (MMA 205) 13:32
Thongpoon (77-23) vs. Yangdam (60-20) (MT 119) 32:45
“Left Sniper” Jomhod (196-58) vs. Akram “La Pépite” Hamidi (48-4) (MT 119) 1:01:49
Gingsanglek (41-9) vs. Kongthoranee (62-15) (MT 132) 1:22:31
Rambolek (62-12) vs. Fariyar Aminipour (13-0) (MT 145) 1:39:51
#2 “Killer Kid” Sitthichai (127-33) vs. Eddie “Silky Smooth” Abasolo (14-4) (MT 155) 2:01:34
Part 2
(C) Arjan “Singh” Bhullar (11-1) vs. (IC) Anatoly “Sladkiy” Malykhin (12-0) (MMA >225 Title 5R) 2:28:23
“Elbow Zombie” Muangthai (203-43) vs. Nico “King of the North” Carillo (24-3) (MT 145) 2:59:55
Seksan (196-74) vs. Nathan Bendon (29-9) (MT 142) 3:16:45
Main Event: #1 Prajanchai (339-52) vs. Sam-A (373-48) (MT 125 Interim Title 5R) 3:43:39
#1 “The Kicking Machine” Superlek (133-29) vs. Nabil Anane (33-4) (MT 135) 4:03:00