WATCH: The complete insanity of Luke Lessei and Bampara Kouyate's brutal back-and-forth at ONE Fight Night 23
The featherweight Muay Thai clash between Bampara Kouyate and Luke Lessei from the recently concluded ONE Fight Night 23 card this past weekend produced an insane match.
Kouyate and Lessei lit each other up in front of the packed Lumpinee Stadium crowd in Bangkok, Thailand. The ending sequence of their match was posted by ONE Championship on Instagram and captioned it:
"INSANE ROUND 🤯 Bampara Kouyate stops Luke Lessei in the final minute! @bambi.nho"
In the video, 'The Chef' tried to rally back in the match during the final round and marched forward against Kouyate. Lessei even scored a knockdown against him with less than two minutes remaining to add more drama to the match.
With seemingly all the momentum shifting to Lessei's way, the French star uncorked a massive uppercut counter that landed perfectly on the American's chin and eventually floored him.
This was the final strike of the match, and the Team Mehdi Zatout representative secured the TKO finish in the last minute of the fight to record his first ONE Championship victory.
Bampara Kouyate successfully bounced back from dismal debut in ONE Championship
This victory by Kouyate over Lessei was a successful bounce back from his disappointing promotional debut in October 2023 against Shakir Al-Tekreeti at ONE Fight Night 15, where he suffered a unanimous decision loss.
Furthermore, the 29-year-old French star may have inched himself closer to a spot in the top five rankings of the featherweight Muay Thai division since he already took down the number five-rated contender.
Now, he could target other ranked fighters like Jimmy Vienot and Jo Nattawut, but a potential rematch with Lessei is also one of his options.
North American viewers with an active Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action from ONE Fight Night 22 via the free event replay.