Jonathan Haggerty gets cheers and boos from crowd at Lumpinee: “I heard everything”

One thing was clear for Jonathan Haggerty going into the main event of ONE Fight Night 9, he would be stepping inside the circle as an underdog up against the odds.

There simply aren’t many tasks as hard as the one that he drew for ONE Fight Night 9 in the whole world of combat sports.

At the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium he would attempt to dethrone one of the most dominant Muay Thai world champions the sport has ever seen in the venue where he made his name.

With one of the biggest shock upsets ONE Championship has ever seen, Haggerty dropped bantamweight Muay Thai king Nong-O Hama three times to become a two-division world champion under the ONE banner.

Haggerty’s move to bantamweight in November last year at ONE on Prime Video 4, where he secured a majority decision over Russia’s Vladimir Kuzmin proved to be worth its weight in gold, literally.

Even with all of Haggerty’s respect and admiration from the fans, he knew people would be counting him out. With the fight taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, they would be likely rooting against him.

In his post event interview following ONE Fight Night 9, Jonathan Haggerty said, that to his surprise, he felt very present in the moment and was able to hear both the fans that were there for his opponent and those who had made the trip to support him:

“I absolutely heard everything. I thought I was going to go in there, and it's going to be tunnel vision, blurry.”

He added:

“I heard everything. I even heard my UK fans down, they're not so big of a group. Thanks for coming out and supporting me. It means a lot. It's really great to be here and to be sat here with the belt.”

As Haggerty prepares to defend his title for the first time, make no mistake about it, Nong-O Hama will be back in the near future.