Aung La N Sang: Vitaly Bigdash trilogy is nail in the coffin, and I want to end it with a bang

Aung La N Sang wants to close out his story with Vitaly Bigdash in emphatic fashion.

N Sang (26-11) defends his ONE Championship light heavyweight title against Bigdash (10-2) at ONE on TNT IV on April 28 at Singapore Indoor Stadium, where he will look to leave no doubt who is the better fighter.

The pair will enter their trilogy bout tied at one win each. Bigdash successfully defended his middleweight title against N Sang with a unanimous decision win in January 2017, but N Sang was able to exact his revenge just five months later by capturing the title from Bigdash, also by unanimous decision.

N Sang would go on to become dual-champ by winning the light heavyweight belt and notched title defenses at both middleweight and light heavyweight, before losing his 185-pound title in his most recent outing to Reinier de Ridder in October.

His focus is now on defending his 205-pound title, and N Sang explains how his loss to Bigdash motivated him to move to Florida’s Sanford MMA to fill some holes in his game.

“He’s the reason why I moved down here to Florida, and hopefully in this matchup, you see a more exciting fight,” N Sang told MMA Junkie. “I needed more professional training partners. I needed higher-level coaches, and I needed to fill my deficit. My wrestling was kind of weak, so against him, that fight really showed, and now I work with Greg Jones and Kami Barzini and that’s as good as it gets.

“And I got great training partners, as well. So what I mean by he’s the reason I moved down here is because I knew my level when I was in Maryland was not there, so my training setting, I had to move, and I came down here, met Henri (Hooft), and that was the end of that.”

With their first two outings both ending in a decision, N Sang, who’s only gone the distance twice in his career, is aiming for the knockout finish.

“We’re 1-1, he’s won the first one and I won the second one,” N Sang said. “This is going to be the nail in the coffin, and I want to end it with a bang. I hope he’s hungry, I hope he comes to fight, but as far as the skillset goes, I think I’ve made a lot of improvements, and I’m hungry for this one. I want to make sure I finish it exciting and I finish the fight, not let it go to a decision like the previous two.”

ONE on TNT IV airs in the U.S. on in primetime on TNT.

To see the full interview with N Sang, check out the video above.