Nolan says ONE Championship’s Sky Sports deal ‘big’ for British fighters, leaving ‘dodgy’ Bangpleenoi decision in past
- Liam Nolan will fly the flag for England at ONE Fight Night 18 when he takes on Ali Aliev in a lightweight clash
- The event is being shown on the British broadcaster, and Nolan says UK fight fans are ‘going to love it’
This weekend’s ONE Fight Night 18 card will be broadcast live on Sky Sports in the UK, the first time a broadcaster more commonly associated with the Premier League has screened one of the promotion’s events.
Flying the flag for England will be Liam Nolan. The lightweight is the only British representative on the card and is aware there will be more eyeballs than ever on his clash with Ali Aliev.
Calling the Sky Sports exposure “big”, Nolan predicted that fight fans in the UK were “going to to love it”, and revealed his phone had been “blowing up” ever since the Muay Thai community had heard the news.
“There’s been lots of messages of support,” he said. “I feel very privileged and lucky but I worked very hard for it.”
The card had originally been set to feature a bantamweight Muay Thai bout pitting Liam Harrison against John Lineker, but the Englishman had not recovered from a knee injury in time leaving Nolan alone to represent his country.
While he got the call relatively late, fortunately the 26-year-old had stayed in shape during the course of the Christmas holidays.
