Kim Soyul looks to win second straight mixed martial arts title against European judo medalist
A mixed martial arts atomweight showdown between women’s kickboxing star So Yul Kim, 26, and a top-ranked European judoka will be presented by Asia’s largest organization, ONE Championship.
ONE Friday Fights 28 will take place on August 11 at Lumpini Stadium (capacity 5,000) in Bangkok, Thailand. Kim will face 2012 European Judo Union (EJU) Under-17 Women’s -44kg silver medalist Noelle Grandjean (27-FR) in the opening bout.
ONE Friday Fights is a brand launched by ONE Championships in Thailand in January 2023. It centers around Muay Thai, with kickboxing and mixed martial arts added to the mix on Fridays at the iconic Lumpini Stadium.
Kim will look to make it two wins in a row in his ONE Championship mixed martial arts debut, riding the momentum of his victory over former K-1 -52kg title challenger Suris Manfredi (35-FR) at ONE Friday Fights 7 in March of this year.
Manfredi is also the 2020 La Thu Hae (Myanmar Boxing) World Championships -53.5 kg champion. The mixed martial arts ranking system Fight Matrix ranks her as the 12th best women’s atomweight in the world after her win over the world-class kickboxer.
In the first bout of the original championship in October 2022, she knocked out Lee Vivins (21-USA), the winner of the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF)-World Mixed Martial Arts Association (WMMAA) Under-17 Women’s Atomweight Championship.
Kim stopped Manfredi at 4:12 of the first round and Grandjean stopped Bivins at 4:01 of the first round. It will be interesting to see which of the two female fighters will be able to complete a winning streak in ONE Championship Mixed Martial Arts.
Prior to ONE Championship, Kim has gained experience in mixed martial arts, including wins at the JUST Challenge in Macau in 2017 and Shooto in Japan in 2022, a 3-1 record in the ONE Warrior Series in 2018 and 2019, and the South Korean “DOUBLE G” atomweight champion in 2021.
The ONE Warrior Series is a reality program produced 카지노사이트 by ONE Championships to discover martial arts talent. Kim also has striking skills, going 6-1 in Korean kickboxing organization Max FC from 2016 to 2018.
European judo powerhouse Grandjang won his ONE Championship debut by punching TKO, while kickboxer Kim So-ryul won with a submission technique called ‘guillotine choke’, showing his maturity as a mixed martial artist. This means that you shouldn’t just think of Kim Soyul as a grappler and Grand Jang as a striker.