Tang Kai to Defend Belt Against Akbar Abdullaev in ONE Fight Night 27 Main Event

Tang will attempt to defend his featherweight belt for the second time on January 10.

(ONE Championship)

ONE Championship will officially kick off its 2025 schedule with a ONE Fight Night 27 card headlined by Featherweight MMA Champion Tang Kai.

Tang To Defend Title Against Akbar Abdullaev In Bangkok

Combat sports fans still have several ONE Friday Fights events and Christian Lee’s return against Alibeg Rasulov at ONE Fight Night 26 to look forward to on this year’s ONE Championship calendar, but it’s never too early to start looking forward to the promotion’s first card of 2025.

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ONE Fight Night 27 is scheduled to take place at the iconic Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on January 10, and ONE Championship has informed MMA Knockout that the card’s main event will be a featherweight MMA title fight between defending champion Tang and undefeated challenger Akbar Abdullaev.

Tang (left) is coming off back-to-back wins over Thanh Le. / (ONE Championship)

Unbeaten since joining the ONE Championship roster in 2019, Tang rode the momentum of six wins and three-straight first-round finishes into a ONE Championship 160 matchup with Thanh Le that saw the 28-year-old claim the ONE Featherweight MMA World Championship via unanimous decision.

A knee injury unfortunately derailed an immediate rematch between the two men before Le won the division’s interim belt by heel hooking Ilya Freymanov at ONE Fight Night 15, but when Tang finally returned at ONE 166 in March he solidified his place as champion by stopping Le with strikes in the third round.

Abdullaev (right) will try to take Tang's featherweight title at ONE Fight Night 27. / (ONE Championship)

The champion will face another stiff test in his second title defense at ONE Fight Night 27, as Abdullaev boasts an impressive 100% finishing rate in his unbeaten career and has stopped two out of his three ONE Championship opponents in less than a minute since making his promotional debut last year.

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Abdullaev’s two most recent wins came against formerly-undefeated competition in Halil Amir and Aaron Cañarte, and combat sports fans will get to see if the 27-year-old can score the biggest victory of his career or if Tang will defend his belt by handing “Bakal” his first loss on January 10, live on Prime Video.

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