“Surprised everyone” - Superlek admits Nabil Anane went beyond expectations in fight against Nico Carrillo

No one expected how it ended. At ONE 170 in Bangkok, Nabil Anane stunned the crowd with a brutal first-round knockout over Nico Carrillo to claim the interim ONE bantamweight Muay Thai belt. It's a result that shook the division and left even the reigning champion raising his eyebrows.

Superlek Kiatmoo9 has seen just about everything inside the ring, and he didn't hide his surprise.

"The fight between Nico and Nabil was beyond my expectations," he said in a feature with Yokkao. "I initially thought Nico would win, I thought Nico would beat Nabil, but in the end, Nabil surprised everyone by knocking him out."

Carrillo came in as the favorite, and Anane knew he was the underdog in that match. But Nabil Anane kept his eyes forward and focused on giving his best performance - he picked his shots and landed with the kind of finish that had the crowd roaring.

Watch the full interview below:

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“It was something weird” - Nabil Anane says he didn’t know how to react after knocking out Nico Carrillo for interim gold in Bangkok

When the referee stepped in, and the crowd erupted, even Algerian-Thai phenom Nabil Anane wasn't sure how to process what just happened. For a second, the high was there, then came the weird silence inside his own head:

"I saw everyone that was beside me. They were all happy when the bell rang. I was happy for three seconds, for five seconds. And then I stopped," Anane told ONE Championship. "And then I just, I don't know. It was a very real, weird feeling. And then I started to become normal again. You know, it was something weird, but it's not a bad feeling, you know?"

Now, as the interim ONE bantamweight Muay Thai world champion, Anane is walking into ONE 172: Takeru vs Rodtang in a unification match with the reigning champ Superlek.

On March 23, Fans can catch the action via PPV on watch.onefc.com.