{"id":31734,"date":"2026-10-08T03:44:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T03:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/?p=31734"},"modified":"2026-10-08T03:44:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T03:44:02","slug":"jonathan-haggerty-plans-to-lean-on-hard-earned-experience-against-hiroki-akimoto-at-one-samurai-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/?p=31734","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Haggerty plans to lean on hard-earned experience against Hiroki Akimoto at ONE SAMURAI 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><span class=\"exactmetrics-inline-popular-posts-label\">Trending:<\/span><span class=\"exactmetrics-inline-popular-posts-border\"\/><span class=\"exactmetrics-inline-popular-posts-border-2\"\/>Ciryl Gane shares first words since Tom Aspinall vacated UFC heavyweight title amid latest eye setback<span class=\"photo-credit\">ONE Championship<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In January 2019, a 21-year-old newcomer walked out in Jakarta with everything to prove. Nearly eight years later, he heads to Tokyo as a two-sport legend defending gold.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Haggerty defends his ONE Bantamweight Kickboxing World Title against former divisional king Hiroki Akimoto at ONE SAMURAI 4 on Saturday, October 17. The contest broadcasts live from Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.<\/p>\n<p>The Briton opened his ONE account against Joseph Lasiri at ONE: ETERNAL GLORY, then stunned Sam-A Gaiyanghadao in his second outing to claim the ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Title. Two losses to Rodtang Jitmuangnon followed before he left flyweight behind entirely.<\/p>\n<p>The breakthrough came in April 2023, when he became the first athlete on the global stage to finish Nong-O Hama, taking the ONE Bantamweight Muay Thai World Title. Months later, he knocked out Fabricio Andrade to capture the vacant kickboxing crown as well.<\/p>\n<p>Superlek eventually took the Muay Thai belt, but the kickboxing title has stayed his. He defended it against Wei Rui at ONE 171: Qatar in February 2025 and against Yuki Yoza at ONE SAMURAI 1 this past April.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat separates me is probably experience. I\u2019ve been there. I\u2019ve been in the five-round world title fights. I\u2019ve been up against the best in the division, the best in the organization. The lights, the cameras, I\u2019m used to it now,\u201d Haggerty said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been in everybody\u2019s backyard, defended the belt, lost the belt, won it back. I think it\u2019s been a lot of character building for me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Jonathan Haggerty credits relentless work ethic<\/h2>\n<p>Haggerty does not attribute his success to talent or luck. The 29-year-old points to a simple formula he has followed since his earliest days in the sport.<\/p>\n<p>Akimoto offers a stern test of whether that formula still holds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI put it all down to hard work. Hard work, dedication, the will to learn, the will to win, and leaving no stone unturned. I train as hard as I possibly can. Like, you wouldn\u2019t believe,\u201d Haggerty said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[This] means everything to me, so getting in there and winning it and winning, getting my hand raised, means a lot at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-1 mt-0 os-source\">This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/jonathan-haggerty\/jonathan-haggerty-plans-to-lean-on-hard-earned-experience-against-hiroki-akimoto-at-one-samurai-4\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jonathan-haggerty-plans-to-lean-on-hard-earned-experience-against-hiroki-akimoto-at-one-samurai-4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trending:Ciryl Gane shares first words since Tom Aspinall vacated UFC heavyweight title amid latest eye setbackONE Championship In January 2019, a 21-year-old newcomer walked out in Jakarta with everything to prove. Nearly eight years later, he heads to Tokyo as a two-sport legend defending gold. Jonathan Haggerty defends his ONE Bantamweight Kickboxing World Title against<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[5721,6331,7889,15285,7511,3623,15284,663,4583],"class_list":["post-31734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fighters","tag-akimoto","tag-experience","tag-haggerty","tag-hardearned","tag-hiroki","tag-jonathan","tag-lean","tag-plans","tag-samurai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmaallout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}