“Battle of the young guns” - Johan Ghazali, Freddie Haggerty stoke the flames of potential matchup of teen phenoms
Age will never define the potential greatness of Johan Ghazali and Freddie Haggerty, and it seems the young phenoms are ready to bring their star power to a whole new level.
The teenage sensations were in attendance at Ball Arena for ONE 168: Denver this past weekend, with Ghazali facing off against Mexico's Josue Cruz and Freddie stepping in the corner of his older brother Jonathan Haggerty in the card's main event.
Their nights, however, had two varying results as Ghazali came away with a stunning first-round knockout of Cruz. At the same time, Freddie watched his brother relinquish the ONE bantamweight Muay Thai world title to Superlek Kiatmoo9.
Nevertheless, ONE Championship's social media team stoked the flames for a potential showdown between the two phenoms.
Both fighters expressed interest in facing off against each other, and it's a matchup ONE Championship could certainly build on for years to come.
Freddie said in the video:
"Congratulations to Johan. It was a good fight, a good performance. I'm ready when he is to get it on."
Not to be outdone, Johan Ghazali immediately responded:
"Freddie has been showing interest in that fight on social media, and, you know, the people wanna see it. So, let's go. Jojo versus Freddie, battle of the young guns."
Ghazali, 17, captured his sixth win in seven matches under the ONE Championship banner when he scored a stunning knockout against the methodical Cruz in the first round of their matchup.
The 19-year-old Freddie, however, had a disappointing night after older brother Jonathan fell to Superlek, the ONE flyweight kickboxing world champion, 49 seconds into the main event.
Johan Ghazali reveals he fought Josue Cruz with a broken hand
Johan Ghazali's first-round finish of Josue Cruz is impressive enough in its own right, but what the Malaysian-American sensation revealed after the fight elevated the victory to a higher tear.
In his post-fight interviews, Ghazali revealed he fought Cruz with a broken hand and wasn't at his peak shape when he fought in Denver this past weekend.
"Honestly, I felt a bit off today because the whole fight camp, I couldn’t spar at all because I broke my hand early on heading into the fight camp."
That injury seemed to affect Ghazali in the early moments of the fight, with Cruz visibly dictating the pace and landing the bigger shots.
Ghazali, however, found his footing in the final 10 seconds of the round and stopped Cruz with barely a second left in the opening period.