By:  | September 27, 2023 12:14 pm

ONE Fight Night 15 has had another reshuffle. Superbon Banchamek has withdrawn after suffering a calf injury in training and will no longer be challenging Tawanchai PKSaenchaigym for the featherweight Muay Thai belt.

But a replacement opponent has been found. Jo Nattawut will now take on Tawanchai at Lumpinee Stadium on October 6th in a three round kickboxing non title fight.

Nattawut will be fighting for the first time this year. The 33 year old suffered back to back defeats in 2022 but goes up against an opponent who is at the pinnacle of the sport.

Tawanchai has won his last five with four of those victories coming inside the distance. He made his kickboxing debut at ONE Fight Night 13 and stopped Davit Kiria in the second round.

 

New headliner

The event will now be headlined or co-headlined by an interim featherweight title fight with former champion Thanh Le taking on Ilya Freymanov at Lumpinee Stadium on October 6th. The bantamweight kickboxing title fight between Jonathan Haggerty and Fabricio Andrade has been postponed and will now headline ONE Fight Night 16.

Le has not fought since losing the belt to Tai Kang at ONE 160 last August. The former featherweight champion has been sitting on the sidelines for over a year.

He was booked to rematch Kang at ONE Fight Night 12 but the Chinese featherweight pulled out after suffering a serious knee injury. In his absence an interim featherweight champion will be crowned.

Freymanov stopped Martin Nguyen on his ONE Championship debut. In his second appearance he submitted Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg and the Russian is currently ranked #3 while Le is #1.

First defence

Jonathan Di Bella will be making the first defence of his strawweight kickboxing title at ONE Fight Night 15. The Canadian faces Danial Williams at Lumpinee Stadium on October 7th.

De Bella won the belt by beating Zhang Peimian at ONE 161. That was last September and the newly crowned champion will have been out of action for over a year by the time he returns to the ring.

By contrast Williams has had a busy schedule, competing in multiple sports. The Thai / Australian is coming off back to back defeats in Muay Thai fights, he was stopped by Superlek Kiatmoo9 last time out.

Prior to that he had dropped a decision to Rodtang Jitmuangnon, so Williams’ losses have at least come at the hands of elite opponents. He will be competing in kickboxing for the first time at ONE Fight Night 15.

 

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Rearranged fight

The atomweight fight between Supergirl Jaroonsakgym and Cristina Morales has been rebooked for ONE Fight Night 15. The two were booked to face off earlier this month but the Spaniard withdrew citing a medical issue.

Lara Fernández stepped in as a last minute replacement at ONE Fight Night 13. Supergirl best her by decision to get in the title mix at atomweight.

Morales was stopped by Anissa Meksen at ONE: ‘Empower’ in 2021 and has not fought since. It is not clear what the medical reason was that prevented her from fighting but the issue has obviously cleared up.

Openweight grappling

An openweight grappling bout is also on the ONE Fight Night 15 card. Mikey Musumeci will be facing Shinya Aoki at Lumpinee Stadium with the latter likely to have a significant weight advantage.

Aoki will be competing for the first time in nearly a year. The 40 year old’s last foray into the world of submission grappling ended with a decision loss to Tye Ruotolo.

Musumeci competes at flyweight and clearly has no difficulty making the limit. He is the promotion’s reigning submission grappling champion in the division and has won five fights out of five for ONE Championship.

ONE Fight Night 15, Bangkok, October 6th
Thanh Le vs. Ilya Freymanov (For interim featherweight belt)
Kickboxing: Jonathan Di Bella (c) vs. Danial Williams (For strawweight title)
Kickboing: Tawanchai PKSaenchaigym vs. Jo Nattawut (Featherweight)
Joshua Pacio vs. Mansur Malachiev (Strawweight)
Eko Roni Saputra vs. Hu Yong (Flyweight)
Mikey Musumeci vs. Shinya Aoki (Openweight)
Timofey Nastyukhin vs. Lipeng Zhang (Lightweight)
Kickboxing: Supergirl vs. Cristina Morales (Atomweight)