For Martin Nguyen, Friday night’s third-round TKO in Singapore was more than just a victory. It was a sweet release from nearly a year and a half of crippling self-doubt and loss of motivation. After stopping the game – but ultimately outmatched – Ukrainian Kirill Gorobets, the former featherweight champion’s hand was raised in ONE Championship for the first time since August 2019 in the Philippines. “It’s been three years since I’ve spoken to you guys after a fight – I was always on the short straw end of the fights, so I’m happy and I’m grateful to be here,” Nguyen (20-5) said during a virtual media scrum which included the Post after his win. That night in Manila, “The Situ-Asian” looked on top of the world, racking up his third title defence with a dominant TKO of Koyomi Matsushima. Since claiming the belt from Marat Gafurov in August 2017, he had also won and vacated ONE’s lightweight title and came close to snatching the bantamweight throne and becoming the promotion’s first triple champ. But he chose to focus on building his legacy at featherweight, where a new crop of challengers were emerging in Thanh Le and Garry Tonon. “I gotta take [Le] out and when Garry is ready we’ll take him out, and then we’ll move on to another division,” Nguyen told the Post in April 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on his – and the world’s – plans. Russian fighters removed from ONE Championship cards in Singapore He finally stepped into the ONE Circle with Le in October 2020, but surrendered his belt in what was a dramatic shock, after going headhunting and unwisely engaging in a striking war with the Vietnamese-American. After nearly a year out to regroup, Nguyen then got knocked out by unheralded South Korean Kim Jae-woong, and his world further unravelled. “I was at the lowest of the low,” Nguyen told the Post on Friday’s Zoom call. “Losing my title after three years, dominant champion, losing in the most embarrassing way in the second fight … I was in a dark hole.” “I don’t usually read comments or anything, but I did this time,” Nguyen added. “I don’t know why. And it kind of hit me in the heart. These guys were saying I was finished, glass jaw – blah, blah, blah. “You get hit, it’s a fight. It’s just unfortunate the way the last two fights happened. But I let them get to me, even though I shouldn’t have. The cherry on top was during this fight week when Kirill said I was done, and I was past my prime. “I was already fresh from my fight camp, and I had so much faith behind everything I had been working on, but he sparked that extra fire of me wanting to do damage.” Nguyen had spent the best part of two years away from his family, who are based in Sydney, while preparing at the Sanford MMA gym in Florida for his fights against Le and Kim, which had to be rebooked multiple times because of various issues owing to Covid-19 . For this camp, Nguyen went back to basics, staying in Australia to focus on his boxing and grappling at Cabra Kai Academy – and to be closer to those people who never gave up on him, even when he gave up on himself. “Here in Australia, I have my family and I get more time with the coaches – a lot more one on ones with my striking coach, Chrysler [De Castro], and my jiu jitsu coach Kian [Pham], and just a bunch of killers on the ground as well at Cabra Kai,” he said. “Realistically, I did one or two MMA sparring rounds this whole eight-week camp. The rest were boxing or jiu jitsu. It was never a mixed martial arts thing where takedowns were involved as well.” Not that he wants to leave Sanford MMA – coach Henri Hooft was still a big part of this camp, helping De Castro to devise a successful game plan for Nguyen, whose more patient approach paid big dividends against Gorobets. “I always get told off by my coaches,” Nguyen said. “I have this part of a fight where it’s so exciting. I land a punch and go, ‘Oh man, that felt so good, let’s land it again’, and that’s where I always get hit. “I’m making a second title run, and every fight I have from here on is gonna be the most professional Martin Nguyen that everyone’s ever seen, when it becomes more of a tactical chess match and at the same time I’m taking your head off.” Not just physically recalibrated, Nguyen has also altered his mindset. “The huge difference is, I spent so much negative energy towards hating someone that I don’t even know, and hate is a bad word,” he said. “I had that young fighter mentality – ‘I wanna kill this guy, beat the [expletive] out of this guy’, but it came to a point where I spent more energy on that than the fight itself. “I figured, ‘Why do I need to be like this?’ I need to focus my energy on what matters most, and that’s me being able to perform. That was a turning point. I hated Thanh Le and I hated Kim Jae-woong, but all in all they’re nice guys.” As the third act of the 33-year-old’s career begins, a warning has been sounded to all of his potential rivals in ONE Championship. “The whole featherweight division is on notice,” Nguyen said. “Whether it’s a rematch or a new match, everyone is on notice, trust that. “The world title will come slowly but surely. Let me just soak this win in. Whoever ONE Championship give me is my next victim. May the best man win. I’m still gonna be in the top five, so they know I’m already a potential opponent.”