Ahead of his next challenge, two-sport ONE Bantamweight World Champion Jonathan Haggerty is looking back at past lessons learned on his YouTube channel. 

“The General” is set to face “The Kicking Machine” Superlek Kiatmoo9 at ONE 168: Denver on Friday, September 6, where he will defend his Muay Thai belt inside the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. 

Among the fights he revisited was his 2022 fight against Vladimir Kuzmin at ONE on Prime Video 4, which was supposed to be Haggerty’s first bantamweight Muay Thai fight. However, he missed the weight, and the fight happened at a catchweight of 147.93 pounds. Recalling the situation, Haggerty remembered it was a close fight.

Jonathan Haggerty further revealed that he had a new coach before moving to bantamweight and was eating a lot. He added, “ I actually missed weight for this fight, you know, bad weight cut. I got all the judgments wrong for the weight and hydration up to bantamweight. I didn’t know how much water my body could hold, so it was all new to me and my coach. We actually missed weight for this one, and we told ourselves again that we’d never miss weight again.” As a result, Haggerty has never missed weight since.

However, even after missing weight and getting hit first by his opponent, Jonathan Haggerty emerged victorious by majority decision. Further in the video, he also revealed how dangerous his Russian opponent was.

Jonathan Haggerty on Vladimir Kuzmin

Russian sensation Vladimir Kuzmin earned his spot in the promotion by winning the one-night Road to ONE 4 back in 2020, edging both his opponents with unanimous decision victories. Kuzmin made his debut in the Circle in 2022 against Scottish fighter Chris Shaw but suffered back-to-back losses against Thai ace Muangthai PK Saenchai and Jonathan Haggerty. 

Haggerty recalled his fight against Vladimir Kuzmin, saying, “He was a dangerous opponent. Going into this fight, he recently fought from the UK, actually from Scotland, Chris Shaw, who’s like ranked number four now, and he beat him. We knew he wasn’t a pushover, so we can well-prepared. This fight was basically like a kickboxing fight, You know more balance, not really a lot of Thai boxing going on here. But I just had to get in there and adapt to his style.”

Even after doubting himself initially, Jonathan Haggerty proved himself in the bantamweight division. He will now face a stiff test in ONE flyweight kickboxing king, Superlek Kiatmoo9, who will be looking to defeat Haggerty for a second time in their career.