“Vitaly’s a cleaner striker and better in submissions” - Aung La Nsang backs Vitaly Bigdash to defeat Fan Rong 

Aung La Nsang knows all about Vitaly Bigdash, having fought the hulking Russian twice.

With his longtime rival set to clash against ‘King Kong Warrior’ Fan Rong in a 95kg catchweight contest at ONE: Winter Warriors II, Aung La Nsang shared why he thinks the former middleweight king will leave the Singapore Indoor Stadium with a win.

Ahead of the event, which airs via tape delay this Friday, December 17, Aung La Nsang told ONE Championship:

“I think Vitaly is more skilled. I think Fan Rong is more durable. There's a lot of big things coming out of the Chinese athletes too. Fan Rong is still pretty green, so you can't count him out. But I think for pure skill set wise, I think Bigdash is more skilled.

“I can be wrong now because of the many years of inactivity, but if you look at just the pure skill set, I think Vitaly’s a cleaner striker and better in his submissions and in his wrestling as well.”

In fact, Aung La Nsang believes his old foe can snag a win via submission against the Chinese athlete, who owns eight submission wins on his resume.

“I think it'd be a submission from Vitaly. But I could be wrong, you know. That's just a fan prediction as a fight fan.”

Bigdash has not competed since December 2018. In that same period, his opponent this Friday, ‘King Kong Warrior’, had already made three appearances in the Circle.

---

Can Aung La Nsang vs. Vitaly Bigdash III finally happen in 2022?

The Myanmar fighter’s rivalry with Bigdash goes way back to 2017. Following an impressive 4-0 run in the promotion, Aung La Nsang faced the then-ONE middleweight world champion.

However, Bigdash was clearly a class above Aung La Nsang in that match. He outstriked ‘The Burmese Python’ in the first two rounds before mixing things up in the final three stanzas to leave the Circle with a clear-cut unanimous decision win.

In the rematch five months later, Aung La Nsang turned the cards around. He was the better athlete throughout the five-round war. Aung La Nsang found a home for his strikes and even managed to knock down the European star early in the first round with huge hooks.

Their trilogy battle was supposed to happen at ONE on TNT IV in the first quarter of 2021. Unfortunately, the Russian was forced to withdraw from the main event tilt after testing positive for COVID-19.