ONE Championship news roundup (April 16, 2023)

Welcome to today's edition of the daily Sportskeeda ONE Championship News Roundup, where we present the promotion's most important stories.

Today’s issue talks about Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida’s thoughts on Mikey Musumeci’s upcoming bout, Nong-O Hama’s plan against Jonathan Haggerty, and Arjan Bhullar offering his opinion on Francis Ngannou.

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#3. ‘Buchecha’ excited to see Mikey Musumeci’s top game: “He wants to test himself”

Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida knows a thing or two about submission grappling, and he’s excited to see how Mikey Musumeci and Osamah Almarwai’s scrap at ONE Fight Night 10 will play out.

In an interview with ONE Championship, the 17-time BJJ world champion shared that he believes that we may see something new from Musumeci when he defends his ONE flyweight submission grappling world title for a second time.

‘Buchecha’ said:

“Being honest, his passing game is really good. He has really good techniques passing. We don’t see him much on top, but once he gets on top, for sure we’re gonna see a lot of pressure and I think because of that, he wants to test himself so we’re gonna see a lot of top game for sure.”

Throughout his ONE Championship tenure, Mikey Musumeci has proven how dangerous he is on his back, defeating the likes of Masakazu Imanari, Cleber Sousa, and Gantumur Bayanduuren in dominant fashion.

However, if we are to believe ‘Buchecha’, then we could see ‘Darth Rigatoni’ being aggressive from top position for a change.

It won’t come easy against Osamah Alamarwai, who will look to make a strong statement in his promotional debut.

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#2. Nong-O Hama bares plan to ‘hurt’ Jonathan Haggerty

Nong-O Hama is running through the competition in ONE Championship, and he wants nothing more than to continue the hot streak that he is in.

Set to face Jonathan Haggerty in the main event of ONE Fight Night 9: Nong-O vs Haggerty on Prime Video, the Thai superstar stated that he is out to put a hurting on his challenger in U.S. primetime om April 21.

Nong-O told ONE Championship:

“My plan is to approach him aggressively and hurt him by striking with hard, heavy, and precise weapons such as leg kicks, punches, and body punches.”

Nong-O is coming off his fifth straight stoppage win, overcoming a very motivated Alaverdi Ramazanov at ONE Friday Fights 1 earlier this year. The reigning world champion was in trouble early on in the match before rallying in the third round and landing a fight-ending body shot on the fatigued Ramazanov.

Like Ramazanov, Jonathan Haggerty will have a bit of a size and length advantage over Nong-O. If the Englishman could capitalize on these like Ramazanov, he could finish the job and become the first man to put a blemish on Nong-O’s ONE Championship record.

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#1. Arjan Bhullar ‘sees similarities’ in Francis Ngannou and Anatoly Malykhin

ONE heavyweight world champion Arjan Bhullar has heard the rumors of MMA free agent Francis Ngannou potentially ending up in ONE Championship, and he made it known that he’s already scouted what ‘The Predator’ can do.

In an interview with MMA Fighting, ‘Singh’ offered his thoughts about what Ngannou brings to the table, saying:

“He was running through everybody and that didn’t work, and he didn’t know how to adjust against Stipe [Miocic]. There was a big hole, Stipe exploited it. And then same with [Derrick] Lewis after that. He had to learn to be patient and adjust and add some kicks and all those types of things, and some grappling. I mean, the grappling won him the fight. He was zero grappling when he first lost to Stipe, and then against Stipe [in the rematch] he defended the takedown.”

Bhullar added that the former UFC heavyweight champion fights the same way as ONE interim heavyweight world champion Anatoly Malykhin:

“I actually see similarities in Anatoly because of that. There’s a lot of questions he hasn’t answered yet.”

Arjan Bhullar may have some of those questions answered when he finally faces Anatoly Malykhin at ONE Fight Night 12 in July.