ONE Fighting Championships will travel to Atlanta, Georgia for the first time on November 8th, the promotion announced Wednesday. In the main event, Anatoly Malykhin will defend his heavyweight title against Oumar ‘Reug Reug’ Kane. And champion, Tawanchai P.K. Saenchai, will meet Jo Nattawut for the third time, for the featherweight muay thai world championship.
ONE 169 will be just the third event the promotion has hosted in the United States. ONE first came to the states in May of 2023 with ONE Fight Night 10: Johnson vs. Moraes III in Colorado. And it was announced, in March, that the promotion will again travel to Colorado for ONE 168: Denver. A star-studded card featuring: Stamp Fairtex, Jonathan Haggerty, Mikey Musumeci and Liam Harrison, among others.
ONE’s heavyweight champion, Anatoly Malykhin (14-0), also the ONE middleweight and light heavyweight champion will be making his first defense of any of his belts. Malykhin, unified the heavyweight title by finishing the champ, Arjan Bhullar, in the third round of their 2023 title unification fight.
‘Reug Reug’ (6-1) turned pro in just 2019. The Senegalese fighter, trained in the traditional combat art of his region, mbapatte wrestling, and has had a meteoric rise thru the ranks. Reug Reug is a tank of a man, and both fighters have 18 finishes between them.
Tawanchai P.K. Saenchai and Jo Nattawut will look to settle the score again, after the controversial decision at ONE 167. Tawanchai stole a majority decision over Jo Nattawut for the ONE muay thai featherweight championship, a little over a week ago. The pair’s first meeting was in October 2023 when Tawanchai won a unanimous decision over ‘Smokin’ Jo.
Now, Jo will have a bit of homefield advantage as the fighter has lived and trained in Georgia for the past decade.
Fights are scheduled to be in State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The arena underwent 234 million dollars’ worth of renovations from 2017 to 2018. It’s hosted four MMA events, most recently in 2019. (UFC 88, UFC 145, UFC 201, UFC 236)
Tickets for ONE 169 will go on sale to the public on Friday, July 12th and pre-sale starts Friday, July 5th.
