Reigning ONE strawweight kickboxing world champion Jonathan Di Bella always sees himself as the underdog.
This Friday night, Di Bella will return to ONE Championship a year removed from his impressive world-title-winning performance against ‘Fighting Rooster’ Zhang Peimian at ONE 162. This time, the Canadian-Italian titleholder will put his 26 pounds of gold on the line as he meets one of the promotion’s most dangerous and versatile strikers, Danial Williams.
Despite going into the bout as a world champion, Jonathan Di Bella maintains the mentality of an underdog, especially when facing an opponent like Williams who has a distinct advantage in overall experience.
“In my mindset, every fight I go through, even now, in my mind, I’m still going to be the underdog,” Di Bella told ONE Championship. “The target is on my back. But I feel like everybody else has more experience than me and they have more fights than me, so I’m always going to be the underdog.
“And that’s how I’m going to be, chasing them like I’m going after their belt. Every time I fight now when I defend it, I’m thinking in my head that it’s vacant and he has the belt and go for it. It just helps me better. It just makes me better.”
Jonathan Di Bella is perfect in his combat sports career thus far, scoring 11 straight wins. Meanwhile, Danial Williams goes into his latest title opportunity with more than 40 career fights under his belt, six of those coming under the ONE Championship banner.
Will that advantage in experience be the difference maker at ONE Fight Night 15?
Amazon Prime Video subscribers in North America can catch all the action at ONE Fight Night 15: Le vs. Freymanov on Prime Video live and for free in U.S. primetime on October 6.
