Arjan Bhullar doesn’t care about Anatoly Malykhin or Francis Ngannou: “This journey as an athlete is about me”

Reigning ONE heavyweight world champion ‘Singh’ Arjan Bhullar has been under fire for months, taking criticism from fans for not having defended ONE gold since winning it early in 2021.

Bhullar captured the belt behind an impressive performance against former divisional king Brandon ‘The Truth’ Vera at ONE: Dangal, an event that showcased ONE Championship’s massive Indian talent.

However, it is now 2023 and Bhullar’s absence has given rise to a couple of new contenders who could possibly challenge his reign – ONE interim heavyweight world champion Anatoly Malykhin and former UFC heavyweight kingpin Francis Ngannou.

While Bhullar and Malykhin are ready to settle their dispute this July at ONE Fight Night 12 and unify the heavyweight belts, Ngannou is heavily rumored to announce the MMA promotion he’s signed with since leaving the UFC.

‘The Predator’ recently mentioned ONE Championship as one of the organizations he's close to striking a deal with.

Speaking to MMA Fighting in a recent interview, Bhullar said that none of this mattered, and that he didn’t really care about Malykhin or Ngannou. He just wants to test his skills against the best.

‘Singh’ said:

“More than anything, it’s a measuring stick. Before I’m done, I wanna know what the top end of my capabilities [are]. It’s for me. This journey as an athlete is about me. I don’t care about Anatoly. I don’t care about Francis. I don’t care about anybody.”

Furthermore, Bhullar says all he wants to do is make his kids proud with what he’s accomplished. He added:

“I wanna know what was the highest level I could get to, and that was it. Ok, hey, I touch this and then I can be done one day and talking to my kids and tell them, ‘hey, dad was this good. This is the best I could have been.’ I got that in wrestling and I wanna get that in this sport, whether that’s bringing Francis in, whether that’s Anatoly, whether it’s someone else. I want to know where my limit was and I don’t believe it’s Anatoly. Let’s see beyond that where it goes.”