“I needed to recover fast” – Roman Kryklia admits Alex Roberts caught him off guard early on in their title fight

Combat sports athletes are some of the toughest people to ever walk on the face of the earth and at ONE Fight Night 17 this past Friday, December 8, fans were treated to a stellar all-Muay Thai card.

The headlining bout featured ONE light heavyweight kickboxing world champion Roman Kryklia and Alex Roberts vying for the inaugural ONE heavyweight Muay Thai world title.

Roberts, who claimed that his journey to being the best will begin with beating Kryklia, turned the tide in his favor late in round one after catching Kryklia with a short right elbow that rocked the Ukrainian monster.

However, Kryklia’s experience and durability were too much to overcome, and he subsequently knocked out ‘The Viking’ in the second round with a massive left hook to the chin - allowing Kryklia to fulfill a lifelong dream.

In the post-event press conference, Kryklia admitted that Roberts got him good with that elbow and knew that it was go time for him once the bell rang ahead of the second round:

“When I came to the corner after the first round, I had to be in my best condition. So I just counted the seconds, and I was thinking I needed to recover fast. One minute was enough, and I came to the second round fresh. I was in good condition.”

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Who has Roman Kryklia beaten throughout his ONE Championship career?

Since arriving onto the scene in 2019, Kryklia’s performances have been nothing short of spectacular as he won the inaugural ONE light heavyweight kickboxing world title with a TKO of Tarik Khbabez and followed it up with a decision win over Andrei Stoica.

He would then beat Murat Aygun with a first-round knockout in 2022 before logging back-to-back TKO wins over Guto Inocente and Iraj Azizpour in the same year.

The full replay of ONE Fight Night 17 is available free on demand for existing Prime Video subscribers in North America.