Thanh Le vs. Ilya Freymanov booked for ONE interim featherweight title bout in October

08/09/2023 21:36

A new ONE interim featherweight champion will be crowned on Oct. 6 when Thanh Le faces Ilya Freymanov at the ONE Fight Night 15 card from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

ONE Championship officials confirmed the matchup to MMA Fighting on Friday.

The interim title fight came together due to an injury suffered by reigning featherweight champion Tang Kai which prevented him from defending the belt. He originally captured gold with a win over Le back in August 2022, but now Tang will have to wait until a later date to unify the title once he's healthy again.

In the meantime, Le looks to win the interim title after previously rattling off five straight wins under the ONE Championship banner, including victories over Martin Nguyen and multi-time grappling champion Garry Tonon.

Overall, Le now sports a 5-1 record in ONE, which includes five knockouts, with his only loss coming to Tang by decision.

As for Freymanov, the Russian fighter looks to build on his current 2-0 résumé in ONE Championship after picking up a win over Nguyen as well as a submission victory against Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg in his previous outing in June.

Freymanov holds a 12-2 record overall and he'll attempt to win the interim title in just his third fight with ONE when he faces Lee in October.

Le vs. Freymanov joins a lineup at ONE Fight Night 15 that already includes three more title fights across Muay Thai and kickboxing, as well as a grappling supermatch between Mikey Musumeci and ex-ONE champion Shinya Aoki.

The card airs live in the United States via Amazon Prime Video starting at 8 p.m. ET on Oct. 6.