Martin Nguyen appreciates the killers he trains with

At ONE Fight Night 7 on February 24, Martin Nguyen is looking to get back in the win column after a rocky run in recent years.

The former two-division world champion has struggled for consistency through his last several fights. With that, he knows what his upcoming outing could mean for him in terms of his ranking in the division.

One asset that he is drawing on in order to keep himself at the top of the sport is his training partners. As a member of Kill Cliff FC, formerly known as Sanford MMA, Nguyen trains alongside some of the very best fighters on the planet.

Known for the incredible depth of talent on their mats at any given time, this is the perfect environment to keep a fighter like Martin Nguyen motivated as he continues to push himself in his career.

In an interview with ONE Championship, ‘The Situ-Asian’ spoke about the benefits of training at his preferred gym:

“In Kill Cliff, you're walking in there, you know that you're going to have dedicated teammates there preparing for their own fights or you're helping out other teammates there. Because these guys do it full-time. And we have people from all around the world that do it full-time. So they're here, whether they're in fight camp or not, or preparing for a camp or preparing for a contract or someone in fight condition, you're going to work every single time you get in that gym.”

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When Martin Nguyen realized he didn’t want to fight in higher weight classes

Martin Nguyen’s days as the former two-division world champion are long behind him. Not only has he struggled to recapture the form that saw him become the first-ever fighter to achieve the feat in ONE Championship, but his days spent away from the featherweight division are over as well.

Reigning as the ONE featherweight world champion, Nguyen challenged himself by moving up to face the lightweight titleholder at the time, Eduard Folayang. Despite winning the fight and producing the crowning achievement in his career, Nguyen says that when he reflected on the fight, he decided to remain in his more natural weight class

In an interview with ONE Championship, Martin Nguyen spoke about the moment when he realized his days of competing at lightweight needed to end:

“Whenever I'm in there, it's always different. I always say this, but on TV, obviously, it's different. I always feel that everyone is somewhat the same size as me. For instance, when I fought Eduard and I faced off with him in the cage, I thought that this guy was the same size as me.”

Martin Nguyen continued, saying:

“I mean, he's strong but I didn't feel that he was towering over me or anything like that. Then when I rewatched the tape, I was like, ‘S***, you're drunk or something, man!’ Like, the guy was huge. Since then, I feel like, yeah, I am probably a smaller featherweight.”

With his focus solely centered on the featherweight division, ‘The Situ-Asian’ knows just how important his upcoming fight against Shamil Gasanov on February 24 is when it comes to his position amongst the other contenders.

Fans across North America can watch Nguyen and Gasanov battle it out at ONE Fight Night 7, which will be broadcast live and for free on Prime Video for those with an active Amazon subscription.