Aung La N Sang Calls Out UFC Veteran For Cage Duel In ONE Championship

Former two-division ONE champion Aung La N Sang is determined to get himself back on the winning track after falling short of his bid to come out triumphant against Russian arch-nemesis Vitaly Bigdash in their trilogy bout this past February.

With the goal to wash away the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth, “The Burmese Python” already has an opponent in mind.

On Twitter, he threw down the gauntlet to ex-UFC middleweight title contender Yushin Okami for a cage encounter at a yet-to-be-announced ONE Championship live event on June 3.

“[Yushin Okami,], shall we dance? June 3rd?” Aung La N Sang wrote.

It did not take too long for Okami to respond to Aung La N Sang’s challenge using the same social media platform.

“Let's fight! Let's decide who is Asia's No.1 in the middleweight division,” the 40-year-old native of Kanagawa, Japan replied.

This is not the first time that the idea of Aung La N Sang battling Okami has surfaced as “Thunder” was the one who first called out the celebrated prizefighter from Myanmar last year.

Okami later revealed that he and Aung La N Sang reached a verbal agreement. Unfortunately, the showdown did not materialize.

But with their most recent social media interaction gaining attention, there is a huge chance that both men could finally duke it out against each other later this year.

Okami needs no introduction to mixed martial arts fans worldwide due to his 21-fight stint in the UFC, where he fought the likes of Rich Franklin, Evan Tanner, Chael Sonnen, Mark Muñoz, Nate Marquardt, Anderson Silva and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

Following his release from the Las Vegas-based promotion in early 2019, Okami his career path to ONE Championship to be part of its growing welterweight division.

The Japanese veteran lost his first two assignments in the organization, but he managed to bounce back and arrest the skid by eking out a split decision victory over former title challenger Agilan Thani in October 2019.

Okami was booked to make his maiden middleweight appearance under the ONE Championship banner last January opposite Brazilian hard-hitter Leandro Ataides, but the latter had to pull out of the match after testing positive for COVID-19.

On the other hand, Aung La N Sang has dropped three of his last four outings—a far cry from his seven-fight winning streak that lasted from 2017 to 2019.

Myanmar’s national sports icon relinquished both the middleweight and light heavyweight titles to Dutch grappling maestro Reinier de Ridder in two separate fights.

Although he had some sort of redemption at the expense of Ataides in July 2021, Aung La N Sang went back to the losing territory by bowing to Bigdash in their rubber match.