Arjan Bhullar sees ‘huge holes’ in Anatoly Malykhin’s game

The heavyweight world title clash the world has been waiting to see will finally go down on June 23.

More than two years removed from his second-round knockout of Brandon Vera to capture the ONE heavyweight world championship, Arjan Bhullar will step inside the circle for a unification bout with interim heavyweight titleholder Anatoly Malykhin. The two behemoths have been going at one another for well over a year, but the time has finally arrived for them to settle things face-to-face.

They’ll do exactly that on a can’t-miss edition of ONE Friday Fights on June 23 as the promotion continues its stellar run at the legendary Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok. With their world title clash mere weeks away, Arjan Bhullar shared his thoughts on his undefeated opponent, Anatoly Malykhin during a recent appearance on Smack Talk with Sandhu:

“Anatoly, very dangerous opponent, you got to have that respect for him,” Bhullar said. Like you said, undefeated, stopped everyone, all that stuff. He has potential for his strengths, absolutely, but we just see huge holes in his game.”

With a 12-0 record and a 100% finish rate under the ONE Championship banner, Anatoly Malykhin has looked nothing short of spectacular, but clearly, Arjan Bhullar is seeing someone the rest of us do not. And certainly, something that no other fighter has been able to exploit thus far. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait much longer to fight out what that is.

Bhullar himself holds an impressive 11-1 overall record with back-to-back wins inside the circle, including his second-round destruction of Brandon Vera to capture 26 pounds of ONE Championship gold. The question is, will the reigning heavyweight titleholder show any signs of ring rust having spent the last 25 months on the shelf?

On June 23, we will find out.