Troy Worthen made good on his ONE Championship debut, and he looks to score another finish on Friday.
Worthen (5-0) takes on Lei Chen (6-1) at ONE Championship 104 and is expecting an action-packed battle.
“Chen Lei seems to be a typically pretty aggressive fighter,” Worthen said. “He always tries to push the pace and make people uncomfortable. Unfortunately for him, I’m comfortable everywhere in the fight game and I like that kind of fight. I like to be in wars and people that want to push forward so I think it’s going to be exciting and it’ll be plenty of fireworks but I see myself being victorious and pretty quickly.”
The undefeated Worthen, is looking to make the climb up the ONE bantamweight rankings, which are contested at 145 pounds, but knows that he still has quite a bit of work to do.
And he says it’s not necessarily the quantity of the fights it’s going to take, more than it is the quality..
“More so than the amount, I think it’s going to be the quality of wins,” Worthen said. “I think I need to fight top-ranked guys to get to that belt. I have a few in mind, you know. Yusup Saadulaev just won last weekend so, he’s a really well known grappler, and he’s been in ONE Championship for a long time, so I think that could be a fight that gets me towards the belt.
“I’ve tested myself against a bunch of strikers before. I haven’t had a grappler (Saadulaev) the same level as me, so that would be interesting, but maybe one or two more after this if they’re top ranked guys. Maybe three or four if not, so we’ll just see how that goes, but I have to get through this one first, so I’m not looking too far.”
ONE Championship's Troy Worthen expects fireworks in matchup against Lei Chen