ONE Championship featherweight king Thanh Le has big plans for 2022 – starting with his imminent fight with Garry Tonon. The 36-year-old Vietnamese-American will meet Tonon, a decorated submission grappler, in the main event of ONE: Lights Out on March 11 in Singapore. He is not underestimating the task at hand. “It’s going to be a difficult fight for the other guy to win, and I feel the same way,” Le (12-2) told the Post just over a week before his title defence. “That’s why I’m really excited to win this fight.” The fight with the 30-year-old American Tonon (6-0) will be Le’s first since he won the featherweight title with a knockout win over Martin Nguyen in October 2020. Given the lay-off he has endured, he is eager to fight again as soon as possible if he gets by Tonon next Friday. He’d even be willing to stay in Singapore for a spot on the ONE: X event on March 26, which will commemorate the Asian martial arts promotion’s 10-year anniversary. “Yes, 100 per cent,” he said when asked about fighting on that card. “You can put me on the next day if you had to. I want a quick turnaround. I want to put these hands on somebody else.” Le has options for his next challenge, but he is most likely to face the winner of a featherweight fight between South Korea’s Kim Jae-woong and China’s Tang Kai, which also goes down at ONE: Lights Out. The pair are ONE’s No 1 and No 4-ranked featherweight contenders respectively. “I like watching both of those guys fight,” Le said. “They’re both skilled in their own way. They both have a little bit of a different of a style.” “Obviously I’m confident in myself,” he added. “I don’t think those guys have the full array of weapons that I do. So if we get matched up, if I do get past Garry, I’d love to show these guys the full array of Thanh Le weapons.” ONE Championship’s De Ridder says he would ‘squeeze Adesanya’s head off’ Whomever Le ends up defending his title against next, he does not believe any featherweights on the ONE roster have what it takes to deal with his rare blend of skill and power. “It’s a loaded division and I’m excited to clear these guys out,” he said. “It’s going to cause a problem the way I move my body, the way I move my feet, and it’s always the great equaliser: you just can’t get touched by me one time. “I touch you once, you could possibly go to sleep and wake up facing those lights. That’s the [Francis] Ngannou problem. You could be whooping his a** for three rounds, and if he hits you once, you really have a chance to go to sleep. That’s a problem.” “Not only do I outpoint you, kick you, tag you up from the outside like [Israel] Adesanya, but I’ve got that one-shot KO power too, which is a big problem for these guys.” Le’s ambition does not end with the ONE featherweight division. He also has his eyes on the ONE lightweight title, which is currently the property of South Korea’s Ok Rae-yoon, and hopes to eventually battle champions from other MMA promotions. “I’m trying to fight as much as possible,” he said. “And I want more than one belt. So let’s defend this division, and then I get a belt somewhere else. I don’t care if it’s Bellator’s, UFC’s, or the [ONE] lightweight belt. We’re going to get another one.” ONE X adds Hirata vs Radzuan, Yamaguchi vs Kelly Le’s first priority, of course, is Tonon. He is envisioning a knockout win late in the fight, and after his unfortunate, year-long lay-off, believes it will be the sweetest victory of his career to date. “I think I end up knocking him out,” he said. “Fourth [round], possibly start of the fifth.” “It’s going to feel as great and even greater than every other ‘W’ I’ve gotten.”