“You look like Tyrone Spong” – Danial Williams reveals the origin of his ‘Mini T’ nickname

ONE world title challenger Danial Williams revealed the origin of his nickname.

In just a few short hours, Williams, better known by combat sports fans as ‘Mini T,’ will attempt to capture his first ONE world championship as he steps into the legendary Lumpinee Boxing Stadium for a showdown with reigning and defending strawweight kickboxing world titleholder Jonathan Di Bella.

Ahead of his highly anticipated return on Friday night, Danial Williams sat down with Sportskeeda MMA in an exclusive interview to look back at his history in combat sports. During the conversation, Williams explained the origin of his nickname and the fighter who inspired it.

“Do you know the fighter Tyrone Spong? There was a big poster of him, he fought an Australian fighter called Nathan “Carnage” Corbett a couple of times actually, but one of the first fights there was a big poster of him in one of the first places I trained in for Muay Thai. One day I came in, I was 14 years old and I shaved my head."

He added:

“I came into the gym and the coach goes, ‘Hey! stand next to that poster’ and that was next to Tyrone Spong. ‘You look like Tyrone Spong’ and everyone agreed in the gym. And he was like ‘We’re gonna have to start calling you Mini Tyrone’. Then from there it just came short for Mini T.”

Having shared the Circle with the biggest names in ONE Championship, including Superlek and Rodtang, Danial Williams will be ready for anything Jonathan Di Bella can throw at him. Will that experience be enough to score him his first ONE world championship? Find out this Friday night.

Amazon Prime Video subscribers in North America can catch all the action at ONE Fight Night 15: Le vs. Freymanov on Prime Video live and for free in U.S. primetime on October 6.