Legend Meets Unbeaten Rising Star As Nong-O Battles Asadula For Vacant Flyweight Muay Thai Gold At ONE Friday Fights 147
Seven bantamweight world title defenses weren’t enough to keep Nong-O Hama from asking himself the hardest question a champion can face: what happens when your body starts betraying your legacy?
The answer arrives March 20 at ONE Friday Fights 147 inside Bangkok’s Lumpinee Stadium, where the 39-year-old Thai icon battles undefeated Russian knockout artist Asadula Imangazaliev for the vacant ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Title. This isn’t redemption. This is reinvention.
Nong-O spent years as ONE Championship’s most dominant bantamweight Muay Thai force, capturing gold in 2019 and defending it seven consecutive times with surgical precision. Sharp counters met devastating finishing power. Clean combinations broke elite opposition. Then Jonathan Haggerty ended the reign with a first-round knockout in April 2023, and reality settled in.
The division had grown bigger, more physical. Nong-O’s body whispered what his mind refused to accept – continuing at 145 pounds meant fighting against nature itself. So the Evolve MMA representative made a calculated gamble: drop to flyweight, where speed and timing trump raw power, where his technical mastery could shine without the constant battle against bigger, younger bodies.
The debut at ONE Fight Night 28 against Kongthoranee Sor Sommai ended in a split decision loss. Close, competitive, but not the statement he needed. Three months later, the adjustments crystallized. Nong-O controlled the rematch tempo at ONE Fight Night 31, displayed sharper movement across three rounds, and earned the unanimous decision that confirmed this wasn’t experimentation – this was legitimate championship contention.
But standing across the ring on March 20 is a young man who doesn’t care about legacies or seven-title-defense resumes. Asadula Imangazaliev has built his 11-0 record on momentum and finishing power, steamrolling through ONE Friday Fights with five wins and four knockouts before his breakthrough moment arrived at ONE Friday Fights 122.
That’s where the Team Mehdi Zatout product launched a first-round head-kick knockout of seven-time Muay Thai World Champion Panpayak Jitmuangnon that echoed through Lumpinee Stadium. The finish wasn’t lucky. It was surgical. It was a statement that youth doesn’t always bow to experience.
January’s ONE Fight Night 39 reinforced that statement when Asadula stopped Kongthoranee in the second round – the same fighter who’d given Nong-O competitive battles. The Russian earned a $50,000 performance bonus and strengthened his claim that this vacant title belongs to the future, not the past.
Experience versus explosiveness. Championship composure versus unblemished confidence. A legend recalibrating his path versus a young star convinced his path leads straight to gold. Inside Lumpinee’s hallowed ground, one man leaves with the flyweight Muay Thai crown and the other leaves with questions about what comes next.
March 20 doesn’t just determine who becomes champion. It determines whether wisdom can outwork youth when bodies start betraying legacies.
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