ONE Championship: I’ll take Malykhin’s heavyweight MMA belt with one punch, says Kane
- Oumar Kane expects to fight triple world champion Anatoly Malykhin at ONE 169 in September
Oumar Kane said he would need just one punch to beat triple world champion Anatoly Malykhin when they clash for the heavyweight title at ONE 169 in September.
The outspoken Senegalese star said the Russian, who holds titles in three different divisions and has a 14-0 record in MMA, had only been successful because his previous opponents were too timid.
And despite being a huge underdog, Kane (6-1), said his victory over Marcus Almeida last year was a bigger fight than the coming one in Atlanta.
“I have big hands,” Kane said. “I touch you one time, it’s finished. You see Malykhin’s fights, no one touches him, they just run away. Me, I am coming for him.”
The 32-year-old needed less than two minutes to see off overmatched social media rival Mamadou Kamara in their kickboxing contest at ONE Fight Night 23 on Saturday.
With Kamara competing in the sport for the first time, it was hardly the standard of fight that fans at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok are used to seeing, but Kane said he was just happy to have silenced his fellow countryman.
“I trained hard, if you train hard fighting is easy,” he said. “I respect him but he is not on the same level, he is talking too much.”
Both men have big social media followings in Senegal, and despite an established ONE Championship star, Kane believed his win would have bolstered his reputation in his homeland.
“Everybody was watching this fight in Senegal,” he said. “I was very happy to fight this guy, everybody knows this guy.”
While Saturday’s fight was an easy morning’s work, taking on the unbeaten Russian will be a different challenge entirely.
“My biggest fight was Buchecha (Almeida), he was top level. This is not a big, big fight.”
Kane beat Almeida, better known as Buchecha, by decision at ONE Fight Night 13. He earned a US$50,000 USD performance bonus after a back and forth three-round battle with the Brazilian.
It was the final fight of Kane’s ONE Championship contract and it took several months for the two parties to come to terms on a new deal. Having been out of action for so long, he was grateful to get back in the ring at the weekend, even if it was for kickboxing rather than an MMA fight.
Fans love a trash talking heavyweight and Muhammad Ali started telling people he was the greatest well before he had actually proved it in the ring.
Kane seems to have taken a page out of the legendary boxer’s playbook and is not afraid to talk up his own abilities and disparage potential opponents.
He has been calling out Malykhin for many months and demanding to fight the champion, and his final message for the Russian was simple and stark.
“Malykhin I’m going to kill you,” he said.
