On the evening of May 3, Vietnamese fighter Thanh Le had his debut match at Asia's largest MMA tournament, one of the One Championship: For Honor, taking place at Istora Senayan arena in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Not disappointing the fans' expectations, the 33-year-old fighter defeated a very strong opponent from Russia Yusup Saadulaev (17, 17, 4 losses) in his first tournament debut.
Entering the match, both players were extremely cautious, constantly avoiding each other's attacks.However, in the middle of the second minute of the first half, Saadulaev suddenly took advantage of his artistic strength to let the Vietnamese-origin fighter down to the ring and quickly locked the opponent's hands and feet.Thanh Le continuously changed his posture to break the lock and successfully stay strong when the first half ended.
When the second half had just begun, the audience was extremely surprised when Thanh Le threw a weighty high knee to the opponent's jaw in a response to the opponent's hug that caused Saadulaev to fall and lose consciousness on the floor.
Referee Olivier Coste immediately decided to stop the match in the 12th second of the second half to award KO to the 33-year-old fighter of Vietnamese origin.
With this victory, Thanh Le has increased his record to 9 goals and 2 losses in his career. However, as this boxer admits, what he wants is more and one of his feather belt will be his next destination.
Currently, his compatriot Martin Nguyen is holding the championship belt in this division. Thus, it is not ruled out the possibility that in the near future there will be a first exciting competition between two fighters with Vietnamese blood at one Championship.
