Nadaka To Admire Takeru’s Perfect Goodbye Ahead Of ONE SAMURAI 4 World Title Defense
World Championship gold has never been the only thing driving Nadaka Yoshinari. Sometimes, the most profound motivation comes from watching someone else say a perfect goodbye.
It traces back to ONE SAMURAI 1, where the reigning ONE Atomweight Muay Thai World Champion defended his title against Songchainoi Kiatsongrit on the same card as the final bout of Takeru Segawa’s legendary career.
Nadaka now returns to Tokyo’s Ariake Arena to defend that same crown against Rifdean Masdor in the co-main event of ONE SAMURAI 4 on Saturday, October 17, the exact night Takeru will be formally inducted into the ONE Hall of Fame.
Nadaka has long admired the kickboxing legend, and what unfolded that night still resonates with him.
“It was his retirement fight, plus a revenge match against a guy who’d beaten him before, and it was also the main event of the show – every kind of pressure you could stack on someone,” he said. “And under all that, he put together the best version of himself, the best performance of his career, and finished the guy inside the distance instead of leaving it to the judges.”
Fight-week obligations kept Nadaka from the arena floor that night, a timing issue he still wrestles with.
“I actually got pulled into doping testing right around then. There was a monitor there so I did watch the whole thing on screen, but missing out on feeling that live in the arena – that’s a regret I’ll carry for life,” he said.
“Genuinely, it felt almost too perfect to be real. Obviously, it came out of everything he’d put in, all his effort. But honestly, I was jealous, genuinely jealous, of how that whole story played out for him,” he said. “It made me really feel that pull, that drawing power he has to make a moment like that happen. That’s the difference between him and me.”
Rather than chase an identity that belongs to someone else, Nadaka prefers to hold onto the principles that got him here.
“I don’t think I have that kind of pull yet, that ability to move the whole scene by myself,” he said. “What matters more for me is not losing myself, sticking firmly to my own style.”
That grounded philosophy is exactly what he plans to lean on against Rifdean.
“Everything since – my coach, everyone at my gym, all my instructors – all of that groundwork is what connects straight through to who I am today. I want to keep aiming higher and climb there together with my team.”
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