ONE: Global Rivals is set for the Mall of Asia Arena on April 15 and a tenth fight was added to the card on Thursday. Two rising featherweight contenders will be going head to head when Martin Nguyen takes on Li Kai Wen.
Nguyen (5-1) earned a ONE Championship contract after beating three separate opponents to win the Brace MMA 145-pound tournament in 2013. After winning his first fight for the promotion, the Australian was handed an unexpected title shot when Jadambaa Narantungalag was prevented from entering Indonesia due to visa issues.
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Nguyen was submitted by current champion Marat Gafurov, but he bounced back to finish Edward Kelly in his next fight, and remains one of the top contenders in a division that also contains the likes of Herbert Burns, Ev Ting, and Christian Lee.
Wen (5-2) was relatively unknown before signing with ONE Championship, but has won four fights out of four for Asia’s biggest MMA promotion. After beating two opponents in a single night to win the Beijing 145-pound tournament on his debut, he went on to register victories over Nathan Ng and Yang Sen.
This match-up completes the ten-fight card, which is headlined by a welterweight title bout between Ben Askren and Nikolay Aleksakhin. The event also features the likes of Lowen Tynanes, Koji Ando, Timofey Nastyukhin, Eric Kelly, Muin Gafurov, and Reece McLaren.
