Anatoly Malykhin Promises First-Round Finish Against Oumar Kane At The Inner Circle
Anatoly Malykhin has had a long time to think about what went wrong at ONE 169. He has spent the months since going back to the system that made him unbeatable and stripping out everything that was not working. On Friday, he gets to test those adjustments against the only man who has ever beaten him.
The ONE Middleweight and ONE Light Heavyweight MMA World Champion challenges ONE Heavyweight MMA World Champion “Reug Reug” Oumar Kane in the main event of The Inner Circle on Friday, May 15, live in Asia primetime from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.
Their first meeting went 25 hard rounds, ended in a split decision for Kane, and stripped Malykhin of the heavyweight belt and his status as a three-division ONE World Champion. The rematch was booked for ONE 173 in Tokyo last November before Kane was injured in a car accident in Dubai. The delay has not cooled anything between them.
Malykhin’s diagnosis of what cost him the first fight is specific and self-critical. He drifted from the Dagestani wrestling that defined his finishing streak — 14 stoppages in 14 wins before the Kane defeat — and paid for it across five rounds. The response has been methodical rather than dramatic.
“I made adjustments to my preparation — more focus on wrestling, more MMA sparring. In the last fight, I moved slightly away from that system,” Malykhin said. “Now, I’ve brought back my old system, hard training. I didn’t reinvent anything. I just returned to what made me strong.”
Kane has publicly claimed he absorbed Malykhin’s left hook without difficulty in the first fight. Malykhin has seen the photographs from that night and is not interested in revisiting the argument on May 15 — he intends to settle it inside the ring with a finish that removes any ambiguity.
“You can’t ignore my knockout power. I’ve finished all my opponents, and he’s next,” he said. “If he says he ‘ate my left hook’ and didn’t feel it, there’s a photo that says otherwise. His lips were flying about 20 centimeters away from his face. That’s the reality.”
The extended preparation period between the cancelled ONE 173 booking and May 15 has not disrupted Malykhin’s rhythm in the slightest. He trains at the same intensity regardless of whether a fight is scheduled, and the additional time has simply meant more weeks of the kind of hard, wrestling-heavy camp he believes will be decisive on Friday.
“For me, delays are nothing unusual. I just keep training, keep preparing, and keep living my dream. I’m always in shape,” Malykhin said. “I’m not the kind of fighter who only trains for a fight and then relaxes when there’s no opponent. I don’t switch off. I stay focused all the time.”
A first-round finish is the stated objective, not a talking point. Malykhin has already mapped out where the rivalry goes after May 15, and the blueprint is ambitious.
“First, I will knock him out now. Then, we can create something like the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ — a real trilogy,” he said. “And after that, I’ll knock him out again in Africa, in front of his own crowd.”
Before any of that, one belt to reclaim. One man in the way. One round to do it.
“In this fight, I’ll stay calm, stay sharp, and look for the finish,” Malykhin said. “And I’ll get it in the first round, like always.”
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