ONE 165: old foes Grigorian and Sittichai face off in potential kickboxing title eliminator
- Marat Grigorian and Sittichai Sitsonpeenong will fight each other for the sixth time in nine years on Sunday
- With the pair ranked second and third in the division, a featherweight title shot could be on the line
Before Superlek Kiatmoo9 and Takeru Segawa battle it out for the flyweight kickboxing crown at ONE 165, two old foes will go toe-to-toe as they try to enhance their own title credentials.
Marat Grigorian and Sittichai Sitsonpeenong will fight each other for the sixth time in nine years on Sunday, and while the latter has won four of their previous encounters, Grigorian came good in 2019, winning the Glory featherweight title.
Now he wants a shot at the ONE Championship featherweight belt, and a chance to redeem himself after already losing two title fights since signing with the promotion.
“The weird thing is I always knew we would fight again,” the 32-year-old Armenian said. “From the first fight, I told my coach that we would meet many times, we would meet five or six times. I told him that in 2015 and nine years later and we are meeting again.
“Fighting with Sittichai is always hard. You always have to give everything you have in your tank. We always improve to be better fighters, and the beautiful thing is we’ve both been trying our best in this division for such a long time. We’ve been standing at the top since we met in 2015.”
Every fight between the pair has been the distance, although Grigorian thinks that, in the past, the judges have been generous towards his opponent.
“We fought many times together but there were times when one of us was sharper, one of us was more clever but he was the title-holder and got the win each time,” he said. “And that’s why I was not always happy with the results because I knew I was better sometimes.”
Grigorian has not been stopped by an opponent since 2008. He knows that the outcome of a fight can change in a split second and has consistently managed to avoid being struck by any truly thunderous shots.
He thinks Sittichai has a similar ability to anticipate danger and knows he needs to be “sharp and focused” if he wants to beat the Thai.
Grigorian’s last fight was for the featherweight kickboxing title, where he again ended up on the wrong end of a unanimous decision to defending champion Chingiz Allazov at ONE Fight Night 13.
And with Grigorian and Sittichai ranked second and third respectively their clash in Tokyo on Sunday has all the makings of a title eliminator, even if both have recent losses to Allazov on their records.
Grigorian certainly sees it that way and believes a win this weekend would provide the quickest possible path to the belt.
“I will do everything I can to win this fight against Sittichai and to get closer to the belt,” he said.
