“He does the right things” – Martin Nguyen credits Garry Tonon’s ability to blend his striking and grappling

Former two-division ONE world champion Martin Nguyen is the type to give credit when it’s due.

As such, ‘The Situ-Asian’ had nothing but praise for the featherweight MMA division’s No.1 contender and his ONE 165 opponent, Garry Tonon.

The world’s largest martial arts organization returns to Tokyo, Japan, this coming Sunday, January 28, with 11 scheduled bouts of martial arts mayhem.

Leading up to this possible world title eliminator at 155 pounds, Nguyen spoke to ONE about Tonon’s incredible skills, which allowed him to win eight of his first nine MMA bouts:

“I feel that the striking that he possesses is to set up what needs to be done right. So, he throws his strikes in order to open up his opponents, in order to take them down and work his jiu-jitsu. That's what he's good at.”

Before shifting to mixed martial arts, ‘The Lion Killer’ built a notorious reputation in the BJJ scene for his wild and deadly grappling style.

While Tonon’s world-class submission pedigree translated well in MMA, his underrated striking has also caught a lot of opponents off guard. Martin Nguyen, for one, is impressed by the American’s use of his unorthodox stand-up skills to chain his takedowns and eventually submit the opposition.

The Kill Cliff FC standout added:

“He's not going to strike to try and knock somebody out. I feel that he doesn't possess that type of power, even though anyone could. But I feel that he's just not that experienced at this stage to be able to do that. But he does the right things setting up his takedowns with his strikes.”

ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru will air live on Sunday, January 28, via global pay-per-view on watch.onefc.com.

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Martin Nguyen has sights on a Thanh Le rematch

Both Garry Tonon and Martin Nguyen are aiming to run it back with interim featherweight MMA world champion Thanh Le.

The victor of this matchup may very well get the chance, especially if Le unifies the belts against Tang Kai at ONE 166: Qatar on March 1.

Martin Nguyen, for his part, feels he still has some unfinished business with the Vietnamese-American slugger after falling short in their first encounter at ONE: Inside the Matrix in 2020.

‘The Situ-Asian’ said in an appearance on the From The Stands podcast:

“For me, who I'd like to see win? I'd like to see kind of Vietnamese people succeed, you know,” Nguyen said. “And I want Thanh Le to win, I want myself to win, and give the fans what they want in that rematch.”