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Jonathan Di Bella hopes to increase the popularity of kickboxing in North America.
Between October 2022 and 2023, Di Bella became the inaugural ONE strawweight kickboxing world champion and defended the throne once. The Canadian-Italian suffered his lone promotional loss in June, losing his title to Prajanchai.
Di Bella proved he's one of the best strawweight strikers on the planet through his first three ONE Championship fights. The 28-year-old has plenty more to accomplish in his fighting career and hopes to help kickboxing grow.
During an interview with Combat Sports Today, Di Bella had this to say about wanting to make kickboxing more popular in North America:
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"Right now, I just wanna give fans a good show, and a good fight every time. I want to give good performances, you know, technical or a good fun fight. That, and my goal is to make kickboxing bigger in America. That’s one of my goals. That’ll be the great."
North American combat sports fans have helped make mixed martial arts mainstream worldwide. Meanwhile, kickboxing and Muay Thai haven't been fully embraced in the U.S., making ONE Championship essential for the sports to grow.
Watch Jonathan Di Bella's entire interview with Combat Sports Today below:
Jonathan Di Bella starts road back to ONE gold
On December 6, Jonathan Di Bella will fight for the first time since being dethroned of his world title by Prajanchai. The Canadian-Italian's upcoming opponent for ONE Fight Night 26 is multi-sport striker Rui Botelho.
Botelho has found his calling in ONE Championship after a split decision win against Zhang Peimiam extended his promotional kickboxing record to 2-0. The Portuguese striker now looks to continue building momentum after defeating Thongpoon in Muay Thai last month.
With a win against Botelho, Di Bells would take a significant step toward earning a rematch against two-sport world champion Prajanchai.
ONE Fight Night 26 will be held inside the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. The upcoming multi-sport event featuring two world title fights can be seen live and for free by North American and Canadian viewers with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription.
