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Luke Lessei started in martial arts at a young age in rural America. Now he is out to introduce himself to the world by way of ONE Championship.
“The Chef’ will make his promotional debut at ONE Fight Night 17 on Prime Video on December 8 in Bangkok, Thailand. He will take on Thai veteran Jo Nattawut in a featured featherweight Muay Thai clash at the famous Lumpinee Boxing Stadium.
Speaking to onefc.com, Luke Lessei, 27, shared that his upcoming ONE outing is something he has long trained for, tracing back from when he was a kid growing up in Iowa. He wants to make it a winning debut and showcase his abilities as a fighter to more people.
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He said:
“[I had a] Super regular upbringing, except for the fact that I’ve been doing martial arts since age 4.”
“I came up in Iowa, middle of America, Midwest, USA, surrounded by cornfields. I grew up with a kind of traditional, hard-loving dad. He was a professional fighter as well.”
Luke Lessei is coming into ONE Fight Night 17 as a replacement for Danish fighter Niclas Larsen, who had to pull out of the showdown because of injury.
He will be banking on his dynamic and entertaining style of play and go for his vaunted stony finish that has seen him gain much success in different competitions, including the World Muay Thai Championships and the Triumph Muay Thai Tournament.
Out to give him a rude welcome is knockout artist Jo Nattawut. ‘Smokin Jo’ has hit a rough patch of late and is looking to get a skid-busting victory and turn things around for him.
ONE Fight Night 17 is free for Prime Video subscribers in North America and will be broadcast live in US primetime.
Luke Lessei does not want to waste sacrifices he has made doing martial arts
American Muay Thai fighter Luke Lessei has come a long way doing martial arts and he does not want to waste the sacrifices he has made to put himself in a position to achieve greater success.
The Iowa native said that to be where he is now in his fighting career, he had to give up much of his social life while growing up to spend more time in the gym and train.
Luke Lessei told onefc.com in an interview:
“I’m gone every Friday night. Every Saturday morning, I’m at the gym. So like, I wanted to party a little bit. I mean, I’m from the Midwest, you know, there’s not anything to do here. Everyone here just drinks and parties, you know, there’s nothing to do. So I wanted to at least let loose and be a kid a little bit.”
“That was probably the hardest thing [to miss out on]. But then looking back, it’s like, yeah, that stuff was dumb. I’m happy I didn’t do that.”
His efforts, however, paid off as he steadily built his name from the amateur ranks all the way to finding his niche as a professional fighter.
Luke Lessei has a grand opportunity to take his martial arts journey to a higher plane as he makes his ONE Championship debut at ONE Fight Night 17 on Prime Video on December 8 in Bangkok. He is up against Thai veteran Jo Nattawut.
