A bantamweight bout between Yuya Wakamatsu and Xie Wei has been added to the ONE Fight Night 12 card. The two will face off at Lumpinee Stadium on July 15th.
Wakamatsu (15-6) is coming off back to back defeats. He was submitted by Adriano Moraes in the third round of a flyweight title fight at ONE: ‘X’ last year.
While Wakamatsu was clearly the underdog heading into that fight his next defeat was more surprising. The 28 year old was stopped in the opening round by Sung Hoon Woo at ONE 163.
Wei (17-5) is also coming off a defeat. He saw his three fight winning streak snapped by Reece McLaren, the Australian submitted him with a rear naked choke at ONE 158.
https://twitter.com/Yuya0209C4/status/1658837674969399300?s=20
Unification bout
As previously announced a heavyweight unification bout is confirmed for ONE Fight Night 12 which is set for Lumpinee Stadium on July 15th. Regular champion Arjan Bhullar will face interim champion Anatoly Malykhin in a card that is being broadcast live on Prime Video in North America.
The fight has been in the works for over a year now and was originally booked for ONE 161 in September. Bhullar pulled out of that event in order to undergo arm surgery.
It was then rescheduled for ONE Fight Night 8 last month. But the bout was postponed again with the promotion citing ‘a shift in broadcast commitments’.
Malykhin recently dropped down to light heavyweight and handed Reinier de Ridder the first loss of his entire career. The Dutchman had dominated the division up until that point but it was a completely one sided fight with the Russian winning the light heavyweight title at ONE Fight Night 5.
NEW DOUBLE-CHAMP 👑👑 ONE Interim Heavyweight World Champion Anatoly Malykhin 🇷🇺 knocks out Reinier de Ridder to claim the light heavyweight throne!#WeAreONE #ONEChampionship #ONEonPrimeVideo5 pic.twitter.com/xp8YrVKd7R
— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) December 3, 2022
Featherweight rematch
Meanwhile another title fight has been added to the ONE Fight Night 12 card. Tang Kai and Thanh Le will be facing each other in a rematch which will have the featherweight title on the line.
The two fighters first faced off at ONE 160. Kai won by decision to snatch the featherweight title from Le at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last August.
Both men had won 100% of their ONE Championship fights going into that bout meaning that a rematch was the obvious option. Kai (15-2) has won seven fights out of seen for the promotion and is the first Chinese mixed martial artist to win one of its titles.
Le (13-3) had won five out of five for ONE Championship prior to the loss to Kai. The last fight was close and the 37 year old will be looking to show that he still ahs enough in the tank to recapture the belt he claimed from Martin Nguyen in 2020.
ONE Fight Night 12, Bangkok, July 15th
Arjan Bhullar (c) vs. Anatoly Malykhin (For heavyweight title)
Tang Kai (c) vs. Thanh Le (For featherweight title)
Yuya Wakamatsu vs. Xie Wei (Bantamweight)
