Relive Thanh Le’s epic world title-winning performance against Martin Nguyen in 2020

Thanh Le returns to the circle to defend his featherweight world championship at ONE 160 in the evening’s co-main event. There, he will face dangerous Chinese striker Tang Kai. With both fighters unbeaten under the ONE Championship banner, both ONE gold and pride are on the line for the two fighters.

Before looking ahead to his world title showdown on August 26, we take a look back at Thanh Le’s win over former world champion Martin Nguyen.

Considered one of the biggest upsets in promotional history, Le’s third-round knockout of Nguyen at ONE: Inside the Matrix was a historic moment that ONE Championship revisited in a recent post on their YouTube channel.

“Before ONE Featherweight World Champion Thanh Le defends his belt against Chinese sensation Tang Kai at ONE 160, relive his historic knockout of Martin Nguyen!”

Catch the video below:

Thanh Le and Martin Nguyen engaged in a memorable war that saw the former world champion use precision striking to land early on. However, it was Le’s pressure and unwillingness to back down that led to the key moment near the halfway point of round three. Le caught Nguyen with a sneaky right near the fence that staggered ‘The Situ-Asian’, giving Le the opportunity to go for the kill.

Nguyen attempted to scramble, but was unable to avoid Le’s wildly thrown strikes. Finally, landing a left followed by a right, Nguyen went down and the referee called for the stoppage at 2:19 into the third.

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Thanh Le is ready to prove age is just a number at ONE 160

Heading into his ONE 160 co-main event with No. 1-ranked contender Tang Kai, much has been said by the challenger about Le’s age.

At 36 years old, Le realizes he is on the back-end of his mixed martial arts career, but believes being the elder of his opponent has its advantages. Speaking at a ONE 160 virtual press conference, Le said:

“We talk about the negatives of being old, but there are also positives of being an older fighter, being that you have more life experience. Do I think that being old has its advantages in the cage? Yeah. I’m gonna use whatever I have have, obviously, to try and beat this guy."

With a career spanning nearly a decade, Thanh Le has learned a lot over the years. And while he admits that his body has slowed as time has passed, his fight IQ is nothing to be underestimated:

“So we’ve had a long time to develop things throughout our career and part of it, let’s say, most of it is all up here [points to head], and it’s really nice to be able to let that out. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”