ONE Championship: Anatoly Malykhin tests positive for Covid-19; interim heavyweight title fight postponed
- Fight against Kirill Grishenko moved from January 28 to ONE: Bad Blood card on February 11
- Marat Grigorian’s featherweight kick-boxing grand prix semi-final vs Chingiz Allazov promoted to new ONE: Only The Brave main event
January 28’s ONE Championship: Only The Brave card has a new main event, with Anatoly Malykhin testing positive for Covid-19, a source told the Post.
The Singapore card was initially set to be topped by an interim heavyweight title fight between Russia’s Malykhin (10-0) and Belarus’ Kirill Grishenko (5-0), both unbeaten in mixed martial arts.
However, that fight has been moved to ONE: Bad Blood on February 11, also inside Singapore Indoor Stadium, because of Covid-19 safety protocols.
In its stead, the featherweight kick-boxing grand prix semi-final between Azerbaijan’s Chingiz Allazov and Armenia’s Marat Grigorian has been promoted to the top slot next Friday.
The changes to the Only The Brave line-up were announced by the promotion on Tuesday.
A source subsequently confirmed to the Post that 34-year-old Malykhin – who trains out of Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket, Thailand – returned a positive Covid-19 test two weeks ago.
There will be no title on the line in Grigorian and Allazov’s main event clash, but the stakes of the bout will be plenty high.
The grand prix’s other semi-final bout – a clash between Thailand’s Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong and Georgia’s Davit Kiria – will serve as the ONE: Only The Brave co-headliner.
Next month’s ONE: Bad Blood event will be topped by a bantamweight title showdown between champion Bibiano Fernandes and fellow Brazilian John Lineker.
ONE: Only the Brave is not the promotion’s first card to be rocked by Covid-19-related changes.
Speaking to the media at the conclusion of last Friday’s ONE: Heavy Hitters event, the organisation’s CEO Chatri Sityodtong commented on the challenges of promoting fights during the pandemic, and revealed plans to book a greater number of fights per event with the expectation that some are likely to be cancelled.
“What we’re doing now for every event, just because of what happened at [the Heavy Hitters event] – we originally had 12 fights scheduled, four got knocked out because of Covid-related reasons – we are actually going to be increasing the number of bouts per event by about 30-40 per cent, on every single show,” Chatri said. “So if there are drop outs, we can still end up at 12 [fights].”
A planned 58kg catchweight Muay Thai bout between Australia’s Diandra Martin and Sweden’s Smilla Sundell has also fallen off next week’s lead card, with Jarred Brooks’ strawweight contest against Hiroba Minowa bumped up to the main card.
