Tommy Langaker has just been booked in a match against Sambo world champion Uali Kurzhev on the preliminary card of the upcoming ONE Fight Night 7 event on February 24th, 2023. Both men have competed in the ONE Championship cage before but have experienced mixed results in the promotion’s newly-created submission grappling divisions. They will be crossing paths in a match that’s positioned early on a fantastic card, shortly before another submission grappling match where Danielle Kelly will take on Judo black belt Ayaka Miura and an exciting main event where John Lineker and Fabricio Andrade will fight for the promotion’s Bantamweight world championship.
Langaker is an experienced BJJ black belt who has reached the podium of the IBJJF world championship on several occasions and earned his place at ADCC 2022 by winning the European trials in impressive fashion. He made his ONE Championship promotional debut back at ONE 160 where he was given a difficult welcome to the organization by being matched up against Renato Canuto. When the pair stepped into the cage, Canuto put up an incredibly tough fight but Langaker emerged victorious and started his career for the Asian combat sports promotion strongly.
Kurzhev on the other hand was given an even more difficult challenge in his ONE Championship debut when he was matched up against Kade Ruotolo, although the Lightweight title was on the line in their match. Kurzhev is a multiple-time Sambo world champion but Ruotolo looked fantastic standing with him and ended up submitting him with a heelhook less than halfway through the match to claim the belt. If Tommy Langaker can manage to win his match against Uali Kurzhev at ONE Fight Night 7, there’s a fair chance that it would earn him a shot against Ruotolo for the title.
The full card for ONE Fight Night 7, including the preliminary card matchup between Tommy Langaker and Uali Kurzhev was announced in a post to the official Instagram account of ONE Championship:
