Anatoly Malykhin reconnects with old friends, training partners in Russia homecoming

A key ingredient to someone’s success is not forgetting their roots despite reaching a mountain of success. This is something that reigning two-division world champion Anatoly Malykhin embodies, and it was on display when he returned to Kemerovo, Russia.

Malykhin received a grand hero’s welcome to celebrate his incredible achievement of becoming the newest undisputed ONE heavyweight world champion after stopping Arjan Bhullar last June at ONE Friday Fights 22 inside the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

Before his crowning as the heavyweight world champion, ‘Sladkiy’ annihilated Reinier de Ridder to win the ONE light heavyweight world title in December last year via a brutal knockout.

In his most recent visit back home, the 35-year-old ‘champ-champ’ shared his outstanding experience and how he reconnected with the people with whom he spent his days growing up as a kid:

Malykhin said to ONE Championship:

"I was also glad to see all my friends with whom I had trained before. A lot of guys were happy to see me, and I was very happy to see them. We discussed some things, remembered some stories from childhood and youth, and how we used to train."

The Russian MMA superstar, who recently opened his own gym in Thailand called ‘Dobrynya’ in Phuket, has yet to defend either of his world titles, but he has expressed his willingness to accept any challengers from the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.

Malykhin remains undefeated in all 13 professional MMA fights, with nine coming via TKO/KO and four via submission. Five of these wins were under the world’s largest martial arts organization, where he stopped Alexandre Machado, Amir Aliakbari, Kirill Grishenko, Reinier de Ridder, and Arjan Bhullar.

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