ONE: Winter Warriors II combatant quotes (Kingad, Akhmetov, and more)
Several ONE Championship athletes took part in an internal Q&A session ahead of their respective bouts later this week. Here are your ONE: Winter Warriors II combatant quotes.
ONE: Winter Warriors II will be shown to the world on Friday, December 17th in a tape-delayed broadcast.
ONE: Winter Warriors II combatant quotes
Danny Kingad “I think that this is going to be an exciting match between me and Kairat. If I beat Kairat this would mean a lot for me. I would have to train harder so I could go with the title shot or anything else. Kairat is a dangerous fighter because he’s a former world champion and he’s dangerous and I think I can give my best with him also. As an athlete, we find ways so we better ourselves in any aspect of martial arts like wrestling, grappling, and striking and I can do all of that. I think it’s hard to say my prediction but we’ll see on Friday. This is going to be an exciting match.”
Kairat Akhmetov “Finally, we’re fighting each other on Friday night and I hope that in the fight we will show a good fight and I hope the judge and everything will be fair in that fight. I do respect Danny. He’s a great fighter, he has great skills. At the same time, he’s a family man. I know he has kids, I respect that, I have my family too. So as I said, this is a sport, we have to go through this. We fight, we get the results but nothing more than just respect for him.”
Stephen Loman “I just focus on my training, improving for those years. All I want to show is, the fans will expect a good fight from me. They will see me, they will see my movements in the fight, I will do my best in the fight. They will expect a good one from me. I think that this is the opportunity for me to fight the best in the world. I think I [can] match him on the ground doing my offense and my defense, I got some learnings also from the grounds, my experience. Yusup is a very good one, [he has] a very good strong wrestling also.”
Yusup Saadulaev “He’s explosive. He likes to pull on himself and then explode. Has pretty good ground control and good double-leg takedowns. He was a champion in Brave Championship and he defended his title a few times, he’s a real [inaudible] and a pretty dangerous fighter. I have not only three but an eight or a nine-win streak in the bantamweight division. I only had one loss but it was in the featherweight, three fights ago so I believe I deserve a title shot.”
ONE Championship
Vitaly Bigdash “I feel great, I feel re-energized. So hungry to come back to the fight and to the cage as well. Yes, of course, I didn’t fight for two years but I think this is kind of explainable, lots of fighters couldn’t fight in this period because of the pandemic, we know. But yeah, I didn’t waste my time, I was going through a couple of training camps so I’m fully ready. I was fully focused on my strengths as well as my weaknesses and I was going through the training camps with one of the best fighters in the world. I’m confident enough that I’ve improved and changed so much.”
Fan Rong “If we keep the striking game until the end, I probably can knock him out because I’ve been preparing for my striking game for a very long time. But for this fight, I’ve been preparing very well-rounded so I’m ready to do striking or grappling, everything. I will only find that out in the Circle, he’s not bad at ground game, I’m also very good in ground game so we’ll find out.”
Zebaztian Kadestam “I got to go for broke. I’m ready. I’m in shape, ready to go to war, let’s go. It’s the fight game, you know. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose but I’ve done everything that I could in preparation so I’m coming. Ready for war. I’m still up there but I have got to prove myself again and I don’t mind. I’ve fought a lot of undefeated guys, you know? For sure he’s good but I’m fighting him, I love this. He’s a good wrestler, he’s a good grappler. Strong, good top, and yeah, good all-around in that area. What he isn’t good at is the striking area and that’s my part but he’s a good fighter.”
Murad Ramazanov “It is actually important to me. Every fighter wants not to lose and get that zero in his record but my goal is to finish my fighting career with that zero. The most important and my goal is to fight for the belt. If I fight him and he’s in a good rank right now, I’m pretty sure I deserve a title shot. I’m ready for any type of discipline. On striking, on grappling- it doesn’t matter, I went through a very strong training camp with one of the best strikers as well as the wrestlers in the world. Probably, you would be surprised with my striking, I will surprise you guys.”
