John Lineker, focused on regaining his MMA title from Fabricio Andrade, is set to face Asa Ten Pow in a Muay Thai contest this Friday, though he remains determined to secure a trilogy fight for the MMA championship.
John Lineker may be facing Asa Ten Pow in a Muay Thai contest this Friday when ONE Championship returns to Denver. Still, he’s fully focused on regaining his MMA title from Fabricio Andrade.
Lineker has won twice in his weight class since losing to Andrade in February 2023. He knocked out Jae Woong Kim and then beat Stephen Loman via decision. Yet, ONE hasn’t offered him another shot at gold.
Instead, he was paired up against Liam Harrison for a Muay Thai contest that ultimately fell through. Then, he lost to Shinya Aoki in an MMA openweight bout.
“I haven’t fought in almost a year, so this is an opportunity for me to stay active,” Lineker told MMA Fighting. He doesn’t take the Aoki loss into consideration since it took place outside his weight class and was offered on hours’ notice as a replacement for Sage Northcutt.
“MMA is my focus, but ONE gives us the opportunity to fight in other sports,” he continued. “So I took it to stay active and also test myself.”
Andrade hasn’t defended the ONE title since his second clash with Lineker. He has competed only once since, losing to Jonathan Haggerty in a kickboxing bout.
“He has the belt for a long time and hasn’t defended it yet,” Lineker said of Andrade. “There’s no one else but me that should do this fight, this trilogy.”
“Let’s wait for the negotiations and see what happens,” he added. “God willing, I’ll get this victory and we’ll see what the future holds for us.”
“The Aoki fight pretty much never happened,” he continued. “It was an openweight match, so it definitely won’t affect my division.”
“I’m coming off two wins in my division,” Lineker emphasized. “If you look at the rankings, there’s no other fight to make but this trilogy.”
“But regardless of them giving me a title shot or not,” he said, “the important thing is having me fight MMA next because that’s my main goal.”
Lineker mentioned it took him a few training sessions to get used to preparing for a Muay Thai bout instead of MMA. He’s been fighting in MMA since 2008, defeating notable names like Marlon Vera, John Dodson, Rob Font, Brian Kelleher, and Bibiano Fernandes.
The hard-hitting Brazilian originally agreed to face Harrison in a Muay Thai contest back in January. However, the one-time ONE Muay Thai title challenger withdrew weeks prior.
Lineker acknowledged that Harrison is more experienced than his upcoming opponent. But beating Pow is no easy task either.
Pow has seven kickboxing appearances inside the GLORY ring and three Muay Thai matches at ONE. Quite an impressive resume.
“My plan is to go for the knockout,” Lineker stated. “I don’t like to leave it to the judges, MMA or Muay Thai.”
“It could happen,” he admitted, “but I go in there looking for the knockout — and it won’t be different this time.”