ONE Championship hasn’t seen the last of British Muay Thai legend Liam “Hitman” Harrison.
The 39-year-old will return to the world’s largest martial arts organisation later this year to take on Soe Lin Oo in a bantamweight Muay Thai collision at ONE 173: Denver on Saturday, 2nd August, inside Denver, Colorado’s Ball Arena.
A leading man in the UK Muay Thai scene, Harrison has seen his fair share of barnburners across his 118-fight career, and he has cemented himself as one of the hardest hitters in the sport along the way.
From his ONE tenure, the Leeds man holds knockout wins over Mohammed Bin Mahmoud and Muangthai PK Saenchai, with the latter winning the promotion’s Muay Thai Fight of the Year award in 2022.
Many believed they’d seen the last of Harrison after he fell to a second-round defeat against Seksan Or Kwanmuang ONE 168 in Denver last September.
The matchup was his return from a two-year layoff, and he lay his gloves in the middle of the ring and appeared to wave a final goodbye following the heartbreaking loss.
However, after much self-reflection, Harrison is convinced he has more in the tank. And he certainly showed that to be true when he blitzed Isaac Araya at Hitman Fight League: The Last Dance to win the WBC Diamond belt last month.
With the rust shaken off, “Hitman” will head back to the U.S. with a point to prove in August. But Soe Lin Oo will undoubtedly be out to spoil his plans.
The Thai scrapper arrived in ONE Championship in 2024, following two decades of domination on Myanmar’s lethwei scene.
He quickly put the bantamweight Muay Thai division on notice, scoring a trifecta of knockout wins over Masayoshi Tsuhashi, Fabio Reis, and Pongsiri PK Saenchai in the ONE Friday Fights series to earn a contract to compete on the organization’s global roster.
Though he has been unable to register a win since, “Man of Steel” proved his mettle against some of the best in his last three fights, going the distance against ONE interim bantamweight Muay Thai king Nabil Anane, striking veteran Seksan and Russian powerhouse Dmitri Kovtun, respectively.
The Myanmar star has a value-for-money fighting style, and his willingness to bite down on his mouthpiece and trade hands will match Harrison’s approach perfectly at ONE 173.
Their highly-anticipated Muay Thai showdown joins a previously announced ONE women’s atomweight MMA world championship unification bout between reigning queen Stamp Fairtex and interim titleholder Denice Zamboanga, which is set to headline ONE Championship’s third show in the U.S. this August.
