Takeru says childhood dream of becoming kickboxing world champion inspired him to start karate

Takeru Segawa said his dream of becoming a kickboxing world champion led him to start doing karate and he has never looked back since.

‘The Natural Born Crusher’ shared that his martial arts dreams formed at an early age, inspired by the fighters he saw competing in promotions like K-1, which he eventually dominated in later on.

He shared this in an interview with ONE Championship ahead of his promotional debut on January 28 at ONE 165 in Japan, saying:

“I had always dreamed of becoming a kickboxing champion when I was a child. I was watching K-1 on TV, and I saw a lot of karate practitioners, and I admired them. I thought if I did karate, maybe I could enter K-1.”

Takeru’s decision to pick up karate indeed did wonders for him as steadily he achieved the goals he had set for himself in martial arts.

In K-1, he dominated for a long time, making history in the promotion by winning world titles in three divisions; super bantamweight, featherweight, and super featherweight.

Such success has led him to ONE Championship last year. He hopes to reach even greater heights in his new home and it all starts at ONE 165, where he will challenge for the ONE flyweight kickboxing world title against reigning world champion Superlek Kiatmoo9.

ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru will air live on Sunday, January 28, via global pay-per-view on watch.onefc.com.

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Takeru looks to test the best strikers in ONE Championship

In signing with ONE Championship last year, Japanese kickboxing superstar Takeru Segawa said among the things he liked about the promotion was its impressive roster of elite fighters. He said it his intention to test himself against them.

He highlighted this in an interview with onefc.com ahead of his scheduled promotional debut later this month, saying:

“ONE Championship is the organization where many champions and strong fighters from all over the world get together. Because this organization has all the strong fighters, I always wanted to fight there myself someday. I was genuinely happy when I got the contract.”

Test is exactly what Takeru is getting in his maiden outing in ONE Championship as he is pitted against the promotion’s flyweight kickboxing king Superlek Kiatmoo9 in a title clash at ONE 165 at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo.

The contest will serve as the headlining contest for the event that will mark ONE’s return to Japan after nearly five years.