Luke Lessei made a statement in his ONE Championship debut against Smokin’ Jo Nattawut. However, the statement came in a razor-thin loss. In his return at ONE Fight Night 19 on Friday, February 16, he is looking to get in the win column and keep his star rising in the featherweight division.
To do so, he’ll have to knock off fellow American Eddie Abasolo. The prospect of establishing American Muay Thai on a global scale has the Iowan excited for the matchup.
“Two Americans trying to become the number one American, both coming off of battles against Thai fighters who are ranked. I mean, it’s kind of like this is like America’s best. You really don’t know what could happen in this fight,” Lessei told ONE.
As both men knock on the door of the title hunt, a win will be vital to their pursuit. It is not lost on Lessei, who is adamant he wants to show a clean performance and walk out with a win to affirm his standing within the division.
“I’m not sure what [Abasolo is] thinking, but I know how bad I want to win, and I know how bad I want to change the momentum because I don’t want to be known as the tough, durable guy,” Lessei admitted.
“That’s not how I came up. I came up with clean technique, clean knockouts, efficient setups, and I’m a creator. I like to have created Muay Thai and technical, traditional Muay Thai.”
Although Lessei thrilled in his ONE debut, it was not quite the performance he wanted to have. In a gritty affair, the American showed his toughness, but he really wanted to display his crisp technique.
That is his focus ahead of his return to Bangkok.
“They already saw that I’m tough [in my last fight]. I’ve kind of got the people’s champ energy,” the American striker said.
“So now I want to show the new fans what I’ve been doing for years, and I want to show the fans that have been around this whole time why they love me, for ‘The Chef’ moves, for all the s*** that they’ve been seeing in my seminars and the Instagram videos and s*** like that. That’s what I’m out to show.”
“The Chef” is cooking up something special for Abasolo inside Lumpinee Boxing Stadium. Following his last outing, he is spurred by the confidence that he can survive a firefight against heavy hitters.
According to the American, that durability will play a bigger role in his second outing. In what he describes as a chess match, Lessei plans to put Abasolo away with his power and blue-collar mentality.
“I think right now the mindset going into it, the camp I’m having, I think I’m going to get Eddie out of there before three rounds. I think I’ll stop his smoothness and hit him with some combinations that are going to make him suffer,” Lessei said.
“It’ll get called. I think the fight’s going to get called late in the second or in the third round. I’m going to try to put him away.”
ONE Fight Night 19 airs live on Friday, February 16, on Prime Video. The action gets underway at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST and is free for all Amazon Prime subscribers based in the U.S. and Canada.