Aung La N Sang continued his winning ways at ONE Championship: Pursuit of Greatness on Friday — and continued his growth as one of ONE’s biggest stars.
9-1 in his last ten fights. Twenty-two finishes. Seventeen in the first round. Aung La N Sang has become a massive star for Asian’s ONE Championship, and the train kept rolling right along on Friday. While the UFC was in New Brunswick, Canada, its Eastern counterpart was in Yangon, Myanmar. There, ‘The Burmese Python’ put on a show for his hometown crowd. In the main event of ONE Championship: Pursuit of Greatness, he did not disappoint.
Sang (24-10, 1NC), who holds the ONE light heavyweight and middleweight championships, was facing another champ-champ on Friday. Mohammad Karaki was a Desert Force middleweight and light heavyweight title holder before jumping up to ONE to face Sang, with the middleweight crown on the line.
It didn’t take Aung La N Sang long to turn it up in Yangon. Just ninety seconds or so in, he dropped Karaki with an uppercut. The noise bellowing through the arena made the call of the action in the fight barely audible. Karaki tried in vain to land upkicks; Sang deftly worked around them.
The challenger would escape, for a time. Karaki struggled to his feat, eating blow after blow from the champion. Aung La stalked him. Caught him with a counter right. Defended a takedown from a desperate Karaki, then set up the finish. Sang went to the liver with a left hand, clearly hurting Karaki with the body shot. Karaki began backpedaling, and soon went down as Aung La N Sang dropped shot after shot.
“The Burmese Python” brings the house down with a sensational TKO of Mohammad Karaki at 2:21 of Round 1! @AungLANsang #WeAreONE #AungLaKaraki #PursuitOfGreatness #Yangon #MartialArts pic.twitter.com/8kc7b48gZb
— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) October 26, 2018
The ref waved it off, and once again, Aung La N Sang had defended the title.
What comes next for ‘The Burmese Python’ will be interesting. He seemed to escape Pursuit of Greatness relatively unscathed, and has yet to defend his light heavyweight belt. “I’m gonna keep getting better and guarantee I’m gonna put on better shows,” he promised after the fight.
