KEY POINTS

  • Xiong Jing Nan harshly responds to Ayaka Miura's recent comments about her power
  • Miura presents one of the toughest challenges to Xiong's reign
  • The champion outlines how she thinks Miura will try to finish the fight

Ayaka Miura may have woken a sleeping giant within women's strawweight champion Xiong Jing Nan ahead of their main event fight at ONE: Heavy Hitters on Friday, January 14.

“[Ayaka] Miura thinks my fights are boring? So, how about trying something new in this fight so that she won’t get bored? She also thinks that I’m not able to knock down any opponent? She thinks I’m losing the ability to [go for the] KO? We will see in the ring. I will show her what a KO is and how it feels to be knocked down by Xiong Jing Nan,” an infuriated champion said.

The 33-year-old from Beijing, China has not won by knockout or TKO since 2019, with it being a battering of Angela Lee in their strawweight title tiff that forced referee Kemp Cheng to call a stop to the bout in the fifth round.

Since joining the Singapore-based promotion back in 2017, “The Panda” has been steamrolling her opponents accumulating a record of seven wins and one loss, with the lone loss coming against Lee when Xiong went after her atomweight title.

Among those seven wins, Xiong has knocked out her opponents four times and won the other three by decision including her most recent wins over Michelle Nicolini and Tiffany Teo.

Miura’s claims appear to have some truth in them by looking at her victories over Nicolini and Teo, but it can be argued that Xiong opted to play it safe against the two well-respected grapplers in order to prevent being trapped in difficult situations.

Xiong acknowledged that Miura’s prowess on the ground as a third-degree black belt in judo and a stellar Brazilian jiu-jitsu game, but she has already scouted out how the Japanese grappling artist might attempt to finish the fight if it goes to the ground.

“She likes to end every fight with her best shoulder lock technique from kesa gatame. And she has even injured her opponents’ elbows with it,” Xiong disclosed.

ONE: Heavy Hitters will be streaming live on the ONE Super App and official ONE Championship YouTube channel at 8:30 PM SGT (7:30 AM ET in the United States).

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