ONE 165: old foes Grigorian and Sittichai face off in potential kickboxing title eliminator
- Marat Grigorian and Sittichai Sitsonpeenong will fight each other for the sixth time in nine years on Sunday
- With the pair ranked second and third in the division, a featherweight title shot could be on the line
Before Superlek Kiatmoo9 and Takeru Segawa battle it out for the flyweight kickboxing crown at ONE 165, two old foes will go toe-to-toe as they try to enhance their own title credentials.
Marat Grigorian and Sittichai Sitsonpeenong will fight each other for the sixth time in nine years on Sunday, and while the latter has won four of their previous encounters, Grigorian came good in 2019, winning the Glory featherweight title.
Now he wants a shot at the ONE Championship featherweight belt, and a chance to redeem himself after already losing two title fights since signing with the promotion.
“The weird thing is I always knew we would fight again,” the 32-year-old Armenian said. “From the first fight, I told my coach that we would meet many times, we would meet five or six times. I told him that in 2015 and nine years later and we are meeting again.
“Fighting with Sittichai is always hard. You always have to give everything you have in your tank. We always improve to be better fighters, and the beautiful thing is we’ve both been trying our best in this division for such a long time. We’ve been standing at the top since we met in 2015.”
Every fight between the pair has been the distance, although Grigorian thinks that, in the past, the judges have been generous towards his opponent.