Former two-division king Martin Nguyen grateful for his ONE Championship career so far

Martin Nguyen is back at home in Australia, and his training seems to be wrapping up nicely before next week’s ONE Fight Night 7 event.

The former ONE world champion posted a video to his Instagram this week of his training at MMA FFT gym in Sydney, where he’s seen wrestling with head coach Renato Subotic. Here’s the full video:

Martin Nguyen (14-6) posted this caption, reflecting on his MMA career so far:

"Through the ups and downs I’ll always cherish every moment of this martial arts career. LEARN - TEACH - PREACH - EVOLVE. Another great session sharing some knowledge with the mmafft team lead by coachsubotic"

Nguyen’s career has taken him to some lofty places, including stints as both the ONE featherweight and lightweight world champion. In his career, he’s beaten some of the best fighters in ONE Championship, including Christian Lee, Marat Gafurov, and Eduard Folayang.

Now thirty-three years old, Martin Nguyen’s career is not over. He’s fighting undefeated Russian grappler Shamil Gasanov (13-0) on the main card of ONE Fight Night 7 next week in Bangkok, Thailand.

The event will be broadcast live and for free on Prime Video on U.S. primetime of February 24 for Amazon subscribers across North America.

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Martin Nguyen breaks down opponent Shamil Gasanov ahead of clash in Bangkok

On February 24, Martin Nguyen will fight his second Russian opponent in a row.

Shamil Gasanov is unbeaten in thirteen fights and is coming off a dominant ONE Championship debut over Kim Jae Woong. Nguyen has fought just about every kind of fighter in the ONE circle, and spoke about Gasanov’s strengths in an interview with ONE Championship:

"I feel like his strengths are obviously his grappling. He's coming from Russia, they're strong guys, they love their wrestling, and on the flip side of his wrestling, he's got jiu-jitsu."

Gasanov's debut fight only gave Martin Nguyen about two minutes of footage to dissect, as he submitted Woong with a rear naked choke in round one. Nguyen reacted to Gasanov’s performance in an interview with the SCMP MMA, saying,

"Obviously, he’s manhandled them and submitted them. Most recently that last opponent Kim Jae Woong. I don’t know about that fight, but yeah. He came in and did his thing, checked him out, and made it look easy. He just cracked the rankings and on to the next guy."

This fight between Nguyen and Gasanov pits the No.5 (Gasanov) against the No.4 (Nguyen) contender in the rankings. Nguyen’s division, featherweight, is in an all-out race to get a shot at world champion Tang Kai.

The crowded top-five also includes Ilya Fremanov (No.3), Garry Tonon (No.2), and Thanh Le (No.1). While most assume that the top three each have a unique claim to challenge Tang, the winner of Martin Nguyen vs. Shamil Gasanov would suddenly add themselves to that conversation, which could, in turn, create some high-pressure number-one contender fights in the near future.