Rivalries: Thanh Le

Thanh Le wants to get back to the mountaintop in One Championship.

The 38-year-old taekwondo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt will face Ilya Freymanov for the interim featherweight title in the ONE on Prime Video 15 headliner this Friday at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. Le has won 12 of his past 14 fights and owns a 5-1 record in the Chatri Sityodtong-led organization. He has 10 first-round finishes to his credit, three of the sub-minute variety.

As Le closes in on his high-stakes showdown with Freymanov at 155 pounds, a look at a few of the rivalries that have helped shape his career to this point:

Lazar Stojadinovic

Le cut down the former King of the Cage champion with a head kick and follow-up punches in the second round of their encounter during Season 1 of Dana White’s Contender Series on July 18, 2017 at the UFC Training Center in Las Vegas. Stojadinovic succumbed to blows 1:35 into Round 2. Le probed for openings with body kicks during an otherwise uneventful first round, then turned his opponent’s aggression against him in the middle stanza. He wrapped a perfectly timed head kick around Stojadinovic’s guard and dropped the American Top Team product to his knees in a dazed and defenseless state. Le then shoved the Miami resident to the canvas and unleashed hammerfists before referee John McCarthy could arrive on the scene. Though the outcome was decisive in nature, Le was not offered an Ultimate Fighting Championship contract.

Kevin Aguilar

“The Angel of Death” retained the Legacy Fighting Alliance featherweight title when he buried Le with punches in the first round of their LFA 40 headliner on May 25, 2018 at The Bomb Factory in Dallas. Aguilar brought the unification bout to an emphatic close 2:44 into Round 1. Le, the interim champion, narrowly missed a spinning wheel kick and gave his adversary pause with a spinning back kick to the body inside the first 40 seconds. Aguilar stayed composed, slowly took control of the center of the cage and trusted his skills to do the rest. He ducked a second wheel kick, buckled Le’s knees with an overhand right and gave chase. Aguilar floored the Kentucky native with a left hook-right hook combination before he pounded him unconscious with a series of vicious hammerfists. It remains the only knockout loss on Le’s resume.

Martin Nguyen

Le brought about some regime change in One Championship when he put away the Kill Cliff Fight Club rep with punches in the third round of their “Inside the Matrix” co-feature and walked away with company’s featherweight title on Oct. 30, 2020 at Singapore Indoor Arena in Kallang, Singapore. The end came 2:19 into Round 3. It was a magnificent effort from Le, who threw the champion off his scent with some deft footwork in the first two rounds. However, everything seemed to be falling into place for Nguyen in the third. He staggered Le on multiple occasions with powerful right hooks but never managed to dial in the damage, and his aggression eventually came back to bite him. Le clipped the him with a chopping right hand and swarmed with a knee strike and follow-up punches before allowing him to stand on unsteady legs. A burst of punches flew next, and Nguyen ate a pair of hooks—first a left, then a right—that shut him down, prompted the stoppage and resulted in the 155-pound title changing hands for the first time in more than 1,100 days.

Kai Tang

The Dragon Warrior export called upon damaging leg kicks, stellar takedown defense and power punching combinations, as he laid claim to the One Championship featherweight crown with a five-round unanimous decision over Le in their ONE 160 co-main event on Aug. 26, 2022 at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. All three judges sided with Tang, who put his 10th straight win in the books at a most opportune time. Le unleashed punches in wild bursts, leaving himself open to counters from the ascending Chinese star. Tang maintained a steady pace and continued to invest in kicks to the lower extremities, which limited the champion’s mobility and made it virtually impossible for him to pursue legitimate takedowns. A fifth-round rally fell short for Le, who went the distance for the first time in his 16-fight career.