Fans react to Tang Kai’s extreme cryotherapy muscle recovery method

Chinese-born featherweight Tang Kai is coming off the biggest win of his mixed martial arts career, defeating Thanh Le to capture the promotion's featherweight world title.

The two superstars went at it for 25-minutes in the co-main event of ONE 160, the same night Christian Lee reclaimed the ONE lightweight world title from division rival Ok Rae Yoon

Following his world title win, ONE Championship gave fans a look into the training that helped him achieve his goal of becoming a ONE world champion. More specifically, Tang’s training recovery method left some fans feeling phantom chills.

“ONE Featherweight World Champion Tang Kai keeps it COOL 🥶 “

Check out the Instagram post below:

Former ONE heavyweight world champion Brandon Vera chimed in on the post, commenting:

“We don’t “like” them… most of us actually “loathe” them, but, it’s a necessary evil in the world of martial arts. 😂😂😂”

Many fans shared their thoughts on the process, with some sharing their own experiences of the chilling recovery method, saying:

“I did this for seven months, morning and night every day in the military , and it's not a happy memory.”

“Cuz they’re awesome for recovery. Athletes period take ice baths.”

“This is much worse than just sitting in there props to tang kai lol”

“Also, nothing burns calories more than being cold ;-) no cardio can match it”

“But I like that little sweet pain. Keeps reminding me of my hard work💪”

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ONE newcomer Ilya Freymanov backs Tang Kai as “rightful” featherweight champion

Another peer who was especially impressed with Tang Kai’s world title victory over Thanh Le at ONE 160 was ONE Championship newcomer Ilya Freymanov. The Russian knockout artist made his promotional debut in U.S. primetime at ONE on Prime Video 2. Thrown right into the fire, Freymanov was paired up with former two-division world champion Martin ‘The Situ-Asian’ Nguyen.

During an interview with ONE, Freymanov shared his admiration for Tang and his winning performance at ONE 160:

“I think Tang Kai is the rightful champion. He is the best in the weight class and won the title from Thanh Le, the champion who has achieved a lot in this sport and won by knockout almost every fight... I have been following Thanh Le fights and I like his style, but Tang Kai proved he is better, he needed the win more, and he is young, hungry, and rightfully took the belt, taking it from the more mature champion.”

For most fighters, debuting on a global stage against an icon like Nguyen would be a fairly daunting task. That was not the case for Freymanov, who delivered a shocking first-round knockout of ‘The Situ-Asian’ in the biggest win of his career thus far.

As a result, Freymanov is now the No.3-ranked contender in the featherweight division.

Check out the full fight between Kai and Le below: