ONE Championship: teenager Johan Ghazali blames cage for first loss of his career
The Malaysian teenager had won his first five fights which saw him become a huge fan favourite back home
Johan Ghazali blamed fighting inside a cage for the first defeat of his ONE Championship career.
The Malaysian teenager had won his first five fights which saw him become a fan favourite back home and earned him a spot on the ONE 167 card.
He was heavily fancied against Vietnam’s Nguyen Tran Duy Nhat in what was his first experience of fighting inside a cage.
But the 17-year-old said combating inside the steel structure threw him off his game.
“The difference between the cage and the ring, I underestimated that and a few other things game plan wise,” Ghazali told the Post. “In the last fight I got carried away.
“I always enjoy a crazy fight and I stepped into the arena and saw the fans there were like 15,000 or 20,000 people who wanted to see a fight and I might have got carried away but you learn from your mistakes.”