ONE: Heavy Hitters – Xiong Jing Nan hits back at Ayaka Miura, gives KO warning

The most dominant woman in the organization’s history looks to successfully defend her ONE Strawweight World Championship for the sixth time against Japanese challenger Ayaka “Zombie” Miura on Friday, 14 January.

In an interview with ONE Championship leading up to this main event, the Tribe Tokyo MMA representative believes Xiong’s knockout abilities are slipping.

That comment did not sit well with the Chinese World Champion, and she is keen to prove her 31-year-old challenger wrong.

“Miura thinks my fights are boring? So, how about trying something new in this fight so that she won’t get bored?” the 33-year-old titlist said.

“She also thinks that I’m not able to knock down any opponent? Does she think I’m losing the ability to 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.”

Xiong Jing Nan to defend Strawweight gold versus Ayaka Miura at ONE Championship 2022 opener

The Singapore-based competitor owns ten knockouts from 16 career wins, using her well-rounded arsenal to deliver classic performances on the global stage.

While the Evolve MMA competitor is aware of her versatility, the same cannot be said for Miura, who has five of 11 wins via scarf-hold Americana.

Xiong understands her rival’s skill set and prefers to refrain from initiating a war of words because “Zombie” is a formidable threat inside the Circle.

“There’s no doubt that Miura is an excellent athlete. She’s really good at ground fighting and jiu-jitsu techniques. It’s tough to escape once she has grappled you,” the world champion with a 16-2 MMA record explained.

“She likes to end every fight with her best shoulder lock technique from Kesa-gatame. It’s a new challenge for me, a higher-level and much harder one. I have foreseen some scenarios that I might get into and how I should deal with them.”

A win against Miura at ONE’s first event of the year will see her move to 8-0 in the women’s strawweight division. Her only defeat in the promotion came against “Unstoppable” Angela Lee in an atomweight faceoff in October 2019.

Download the ONE Super App to catch all the action from ONE: HEAVY HITTERS on Friday, 14 January.

Source: Media Release