1 April

Myanmar sports icon and two-division ONE World Champion Aung La N Sang successfully retained his middleweight title by beating Japanese warrior Ken Hasegawa yesterday in a bout titled ‘ONE Championship: A New Era’at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan.

Aung La made a near-flawless victory, relying on his boxing skills to defend his middleweight world title, while the Japanese warrior leaned on his judo skills to try and dethrone the Myanmar hero in his promotional debut.

Aung La N Sang stopped Ken Hasegawa with a brutal TKO (technical knockout). The end came at 4:41 minutes in the second round of the fight.

This was their second fight.In their first meeting in June, 2018, Aung La had won with a fifth-round knockout.

Both fighters dug deep yesterday to treat the crowd to a power-packed rematch.

The first meaningful offense came from Aung La in the later part of the first round. He delivered a powerful

punch, but Hasegawa wasn’t deterred.

Late in the second round, Hasegawa finally went after a takedown to try and keep Aung La’s striking at bay.

But with 30 seconds left, Aung La N Sang landed a massive right hand, and Hasegawa immediately fell to the canvas. Aung La moved in and finished the match with just a few punches, successfully retaining his title. —Lynn Thit (Tgi)