Dripping sweat in a stuffy gym, Jonathan Haggerty prepares for war. The British muay thai fighter has successfully made the jump from flyweight to bantamweight and is ready to go straight to the king of the division.
‘The General’ is scheduled to fight Nong-O Hama, the ONE World Muay Thai Bantamweight Champion, in the main event of ONE Fight Night 9 on April 21. In preparation for the big fight, Haggerty posted an Instagram reel of him training, breaking pads with punches, elbows and kicks.
After fighting and briefly holding the belt at flyweight, Jonathan Haggerty faced the challenge of moving up in weight to bantamweight. He passed his first test with a majority decision win against Vladimir Kuzmin at ONE on Prime Video 4 last November.
Now, two months into a scheduled five rounds with one of Muay Thai’s most intimidating world champions, Haggerty is stepping into fight camp.
Jonathan Haggerty chose Muay Thai over MMA in pursuit of winning a ONE Championship belt
With ONE Championship promoting four sports under its banner, athletes signed to ONE have several options that they may not have had at other organizations.
Jonathan Haggerty was one of those fighters who was able to contemplate not only his way into his preferred sport of Muay Thai, but also if he wanted to try another sport like MMA. Haggerty took a look at what those conversations with his team went like in an interview with the media outlet. The MMA Superfan and what prompted him to finally recommit to muay thai:
“The plan was, I sat down with my team and there were two options. We can go muay thai bantamweight or we can throw ourselves into MMA. I chose Bantamweight Muay Thai because I feel like I want to win the belt back in Muay Thai. I’m meant to get that. I want that belt, especially the new belt. We chose Muay Thai.”
Watch the full interview here:
At 26, Jonathan Haggerty still has plenty of time to make waves in Muay Thai and still give MMA a try in the future if he wants to. The prospect of Haggerty fighting in ONE’s bantamweight division is fun to entertain, if nothing else. He envisions ‘The General’ taking on the likes of Bibiano Fernandes, John Lineker, or even rising stars like Fabricio Andrade and Stephen Loman.
For now, fans will be able to watch Jonathan Haggerty continue to create his Muay Thai legacy as he attempts to become a world champion in a second weight class at the ONE Championship.
The champion, Nong-O Hama, has yet to lose at ONE and keeps getting better. He is coming off a successful world title defense last month against Ramazan Alaverdi, where he stunned the Russian with a body shot in the third round. This was his fifth consecutive finish in the circle.