"Take home the belt" - Akbar Abdullaev says Tang Kai's days as featherweight king are numbered

The recently concluded ONE Fight Night 27 card, which went down inside the Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, last Friday evening, revealed that number five-ranked featherweight MMA contender Akbar Abdullaev could beat the reigning divisional king Tang Kai.

Abdullaev scored a fifth-round TKO finish against Tang to snap his unbeaten run under the world's largest martial arts organization. Despite the massive win, he couldn't win the 26-pound golden belt after missing weight before the match.

In his post-fight interview with the Bangkok Post, the Kyrgyz MMA star said that he's pushing for a rematch with the Chinese champion and reasserting his mastery over him to claim the throne:

"It'll be very interesting to see what Tang Kai would do in the next fight against me. I don't want to look too far into the future because we never know what's going to happen tomorrow. But I would love to see Tang Kai again and go for the title and take home the belt."

Watch Akbar Abdullaev's full interview here:

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Akbar Abdullaev gives Tang Kai his flowers for giving him a hard fight at ONE Fight Night 27

The win over Tang is Abdullaev's biggest in his professional career, and he is grateful for it. During his in-ring talk with Mitch Chilson, the Al Munar Team and Tiger Muay Thai representative has lauded the featherweight king for giving him a tough test.

The 27-year-old dynamo said:

"I want to say thank you to the higher power, I want to say thank you to God, this is all thanks to him. And I also want to say thank you to my opponent, he was a very strong opponent."

North American viewers with an active Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action at ONE Fight Night 27 via the free event replay.