WATCH: A bloodied Johan Ghazali finds rhythm in vicious comeback win over Josue Cruz in Denver
Johan Ghazali returned to the winner's circle after beating Josue Cruz in their catchweight Muay Thai clash during his previous outing at ONE 168: Denver last September 6 inside the Ball Arena in Colorado.
Ghazali showed not only his tremendous power but also a big heart in his first-round knockout victory, as ONE Championship reposted the highlights of his outstanding performance.
They captioned the video with:
"HEATED 💥 Who should striking phenom Johan Ghazali square off against next? @johanghazali_"
'Jojo' shrugged off the early onslaught from the Mexican contender and still went on to fight with a busted nose.
Ghazali continued pressing forward and pressured Cruz against the cage until he landed a solid punch straight to Cruz's temple that dropped him at the last second of the opening round.
That atomic punch from the 18-year-old phenom became the end of the match because the Mahmoudi Gym Mexico representative was not able to recover and yielded a knockout defeat at the hands of Ghazali.
It was the Rentap Muaythai Gym representative's sixth victory under the world's largest martial arts organization.
Johan Ghazali named several of the fighters that he gets inspiration from
After his latest triumph in Denver, Ghazali addressed the media during the post-event scrum, where he dropped the names of the fighters who gave him inspiration to become the athlete he wanted to be.
However, the Malaysian-American rising star said that he only cherry-picks the good qualities from them, as he shared:
"I look at all sorts of fighters. I take the good and leave the bad. Historically, like you said, Muhammad Ali, Conor McGregor, he is a kind of promoter who brings new fans into the sport. I take a lot from those kind of fighters."
North American viewers with an active Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action from the ONE 168: Denver card via the free event replay.