Finally, Thanh Le's first Featherweight's first match against the “Bjj Monster” Garry Tonon was officially announced on December 5. This will be one of the 3 focal matches of the One X Special event – the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the One Championship tournament, according to the CEO One Chatri Sityodong.
Earlier, Chatri announced that One tried to arrange the match between Thanh Le and Garry Tonon in April, and June in the summer of 2021, but because Thanh Le needed more time to recover injury, the match continued to be delayed until now.
Thanh Le's hand injury came from the competition with Martin Nguyen last year at the One: Inside the Matrix, and due to the accident in training, he had to bandage his fingers again.
“As you know, my original plan is to confront Martin Nguyen in a rematch. However, I am not afraid to receive more opportunities from other opponents, such as Garry Tonon – who had a very convincing victory over Koyomi Matsushima,” Thanh Le shared in an interview with One Championship.
It can be said that Garry Tonon will definitely not be an easy opponent for Thanh Le. With Takedown fell and control ability, Garry Tonon is considered one of the best names of BJJ village that has shifted to MMA martial arts.
Predicting what could take place in the upcoming face, Thanh Le assessed that with him and Tonon each have two different pieces of forte, the movements of the belt protection match will not be easy to predict at all.
“If analysis of me and Garry Tonon, people will immediately see that because I am the forte and Garry the forte of war, the important thing that decides to win and lose is between the two of us, who will master the rhythm of the game.”
“If I was pulled by Garry to the floor, it could be said to be the end.
In addition to the match of Thanh Le, two other focus matches of One X have also been announced.
The first is the very specific Hybrid Fight match between the champion Muay Thai Rodtang Jitmuangnon – who is holding the championship in the weight class of Nguyen Tran Duy Nhat – with the legendary MMA Flyweight Demetrious Johnson. It is known that this match will have 4 rounds, of which the first half and the third half play the Muay Thai law and the second half, the fourth half play the law of MMA.
The second is the bantamweight struggle between the champion Bibiano Fernandes – who once made Martin Nguyen taste the defeat – with the “stone hand” John Lineker. Lineker is one of the most terrifying boxers at UFC, so it is not difficult to understand when he continues to spread with impressive victories at One.