Friday’s ONE Championship heavyweight title fight has been expected to be a doozy for a while, and that was confirmed at the news conference.
Tempers weren’t exactly kept in check when three-division champ Anatoly Malykhin and Oumar Kane (aka “Reug Reug”) squared off for the ONE 169 heavyweight title main event.
Malykhin (14-0) got a physical reaction from Kane (6-1) in their faceoff, and after a few more physical decisions they had to be separated.
Former UFC middleweight champion and current ONE VP Rich Franklin thinks there’s reason to feel a buzz around the heavyweight headliner because Malykhin is back in the division and not down a weight class or two.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had a heavyweight title match, particularly with Malykhin bouncing around and the different matches he did in the different weight classes,” Franklin told MMA Junkie Radio. “This is the first time we’ve had the king in that division back again (in a while), so this is a big deal.”
Malykhin never has been out of the third round and has all 14 of his wins by finish, including two over former two-division champ Reinier de Ridder, who makes his UFC debut Saturday in the co-main event.
His dominance has led to him being a prohibitive 10-1 favorite at the betting window against Kane. But Franklin cautioned against counting out the 32-year-old from Senegal.
“‘Reug Reug’ – I’ll say this: I wasn’t a big believer when he came into the organization. I was like, meh,” Franklin said. “But each fight, he’s been able to close the gap a bit more and a bit more. I think Malykhin is going to be a tough opponent for him – a very tough opponent – so he’ll need to up his game because Malykhin is more of the complete package.
“I do believe ‘Reug Reug’ will have to rely on his wrestling more. But ‘Reug Reug’ is a super athletic guy, and because of his wrestling, he’s a bit more unorthodox with his striking – so that can oftentimes make bad fighters look good, as well.”
Marcus Almeida isn’t happy with how things currently stand with ONE Championship.
Almeida, a jiu-jitsu legend who turned to MMA in 2021, is frustrated with the lack of fights he’s been presented by the organization since his last appearance – a showdown with Oumar Kane in August 2023. “Buchecha” makes his return Friday night at ONE Championship 169 in Bangkok. He takes on Amir Aliakbari in a heavyweight bout.
Almeida is not sure why it’s taken him 15 months to return to fighting, and he’s not content about it.
“No, I’ve been ready since the last fight,” Almeida told MMA Junkie when asked about why he’s been inactive. “Unfortunately that’s not up to me. That’s because of the organization, because I want to keep active, and I want to keep fighting, but I don’t know the reason to it. That’s why I was out. It wasn’t up to me.”
Almeida did have an active start to his MMA career. He competed four times in 11 months under ONE Championship. He was hoping the promotion would keep a slightly similar pace for him, as he’d like to fight at least three times a year, but that hasn’t been the case.
“In jiu-jitsu, I used to compete a lot, so to be sitting out for 15 months, for me, it was horrible,” Almeida explained. “It’s a bad experience for my career, and I’m not getting any younger, but it is what it is.”
Almeida told MMA Fighting’s Guillerme Cruz in Portuguese that Friday’s bout will be the last on his current contract. It’s unknown if he’ll re-sign with the promotion.
As of now, Almeida has one thing to focus on, and that’s his bout against Aliakbari, which he’s taking very seriously.
“We have like a similar record in ONE Championship,” Almeida said regarding Aliakbari. “Of course, he has a career before ONE, but he has four victories, I have four victories, and he has two loses, and I have one. So it’s pretty much similar to what we did in ONE Championship. Like I said, he fought Rizin and other events before that, so of course he has a lot of experience with me in MMA. He’s a tough opponent and has fought a lot of tough guys. It’s going to be a good fight, grappler vs. grappler, so it’s going to be really interesting for the audience.”
