Just two months after ONE Championship returns to the U.S. for ONE 168: Denver in Colorado, it will venture back to North American soil for another thrilling show.
On Saturday, 9th November, organization will take over Atlanta, Georgia’s State Farm Arena for ONE 169, and three-weight ONE World Champion Anatoly Malykhin will defend his heavyweight MMA crown for the first time against “Reug Reug” Oumar Kane in the main event.
Since setting foot in ONE in March 2021, Malykhin has dominated every opponent he’s faced – across a mind-blowing three divisions. “Sladkiy” kickstarted his promotional tenure with back-to-back first-round knockout wins over Alexandre Machado and Amir Aliakbari.
That gave him his first shot at gold against Kirill Grishenko at ONE: Bad Blood in February 2022. The pair battled it out for the interim heavyweight MMA crown, and Malykhin wasted no time, battering his way to a second-round finish of his Belarusian foe.
Unsatisfied with having to sit on the sidelines and wait for the return of then-heavyweight MMA king Arjan Bhullar, the 36-year-old decided to drop to light heavyweight and challenge titleholder Reinier de Ridder for the strap in December 2022 at ONE on Prime Video 5.
Malykhin’s tremendous power was no match for the previously unbeaten De Ridder, who fell to the Russian in the first round.
With an undisputed World Title in his possession, it was then time for “Sladkiy” to move back up to heavyweight for his unification battle with Bhullar. They clashed last June at ONE Friday Fights 22, and though “Singh” gave Malykhin his toughest test, the storming star carved out a finish in the third round to capture the ONE Heavyweight MMA World Title.
From there, he made the bold call to move down three divisions to rematch De Ridder and challenge him for the middleweight MMA stap he had held for nearly four years.
The much-anticipated showdown went down this past March at ONE 166: Qatar. “The Dutch Knight” showed improvement from their first meeting, but Malykhin was laser-focused on his goal. He dominated De Ridder and forced the referee to stop the action in round three, crowning him the first-ever three-weight ONE MMA World Champion.
With his record now at 14-0 and all of his wins coming by finish, “Sladkiy” is right to have the utmost confidence in his skills. But his upcoming foe will certainly offer up a difficult challenge.
Kane has the perfect mix of strong wrestling skills and fight-ending power to be a threat to Malykhin. The Senegalese star has thwarted five of his six opponents in ONE, starting with Alain Ngalani and Patrick Schmid, who he finished one after the other in the first round after arriving in the promotion in 2021.
Though he suffered a setback against Grishenko at ONE on TNT IV in April 2021, “Reug Reug” powered back with a second-round knockout win against Batradz Gazzaev at ONE 161 in September 2022, and he toppled Jasur Mirzamukhamedov at ONE on Prime Video 5 three months later.
That wave of momentum resulted in Kane’s biggest win yet in his latest ONE outing. The 32-year-old shocked the world when he bested 14-time BJJ World Champion Marcus Almeida by unanimous decision at ONE on Prime Video 13 last August.
That victory pushed him directly into World Title contention, and fans can bet he won’t waste his chance to show that Malykhin can be beaten when they collide at ONE 169: Atlanta.
