One Championship: Martin Nguyen plans to take out Thanh Le, Garry Tonon – then challenge Bibiano Fernandes

One Championship featherweight title-holder Martin Nguyen has been back with his wife and children in Sydney, Australia now for a couple of weeks. He’s just finished an eight-week training camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at Sanford MMA with fellow champion Aung La N Sang.

“Coming home to them was the best feeling ever,” he tells the Post.

What was not the best feeling ever, was going through another camp with no fight at the end of it.

“You’re telling me, man,” he says. “It’s the second time in a row my bout has fallen through. I try to take the positivity out of it that I’ve got much, much better. But it’s just a case of getting a bout and showing everyone that.”

“This is the game. Stuff’s out of our control,” he adds. “There’s no use dwelling on all the negativity. Take the positives and move on.”

Nguyen (13-3) was set to defend his belt against Vietnamese-American Thanh Le (11-2) on the Infinity 1 card in Jakarta, Indonesia this month. The show was then moved behind closed doors in Singapore, before the government shut down all events in One’s home city.

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It means back-to-back disappointments for “The Situ-Asian”, who was training to fight Christian Lee in Tokyo last October before an injury to Eddie Alvarez saw the lightweight champion step into the final of the division’s grand prix against Dagi Arslanaliev. Nguyen said he still hopes to fight Le, whenever the circumstances finally allow it.

“I’m staying ready, no matter what,” Nguyen said. “I’ll always be ready for whatever they put in front of me. As of now I’m focused on one guy only. That’s the second guy I signed a bout agreement for. Whether he’ll be ready in time when they sign the next bout, we’ll see. I’m sure he’ll want this opportunity.”

American Garry Tonon had also called out Nguyen earlier this year. He told the Post he wanted the fight, but ended up being booked in a different bout on the same card against another featherweight contender.

“Yeah, of course Garry Tonon’s gonna say that. I accepted the bout on my end. I don’t know what happened on his side or his management’s side. On his side it wasn’t accepted,” Nguyen said.

“Obviously he’s got the ground skills to back it up, but in terms of it being an MMA bout, only he knows if he’s ready now. On his side he’ll accept the contract. I’m sure he’ll know when he knows.

“The show goes on. I’m not gonna dwell over one guy. The next guy up was another title contender so I gotta take him out and when Garry is ready we’ll take him out, and then we’ll move on to another division.”

That other division is not the lightweight one that Nguyen used to rule over also. He is instead eyeing a move down to bantamweight to challenge champion Bibiano Fernandes (24-4). Nguyen lost a split decision to the Brazilian veteran in March 2018 which cost him the chance to become a simultaneous three-weight champion.

“I’m hoping but we’ll see how it goes,” he said. “I want to take out all the contenders, give them opportunity to try and take my title. Then I’d like to go down and challenge Bibiano. We’ll go from there, but there’s a stack of other contenders in the bantamweight division so I’ll let him do his thing. And when the stars align we can do it.

“If Christian wants to come back down, I’ll challenge him, but he’s got a whole division in front of him. I don’t see him coming down to featherweight any time soon. As of now I’ll take out all the featherweight contenders.

“But I’ve always got a chip on my shoulder with that Bibiano match. Hats off, respect to him. He’s done a lot for this sport and he’s done a lot in his career. He’s got a huge career still to go. That bout against him, man, I had four and a half rounds, up until the last half a round which squared the judges when he hit me with that right hand. We’ll see what happens.”

Whenever he fights next, Nguyen will not be rushed.

“I’ll do everything right. Every time I have any bout, I do everything right,” he said. “Instead of taking short notice bouts on two weeks or one week, I gotta focus more on myself and this legacy. I’ll do whatever it takes now to make sure I’m mentally and physically prepared. The minimum notice I’ll take is about four weeks or so.”

“I had five people on the list – and I sent those to [One CEO] Chatri [Sityodtong],” Nguyen added. “I took out [Narantungalag] Jadambaa, I took him out. [Koyomi] Matsushima, took him out. [Marat] Gafurov has moved on. Thanh Le was on the list, and Christian Lee was on the list.

“I’m getting goosebumps because I’m so ready. All these camps I’ve done and the bouts have fallen through, it’s not a good feeling bro. I get butterflies thinking about it, it’s gonna be good.”