On the same night his older brother lost the bantamweight Muay Thai title, Yonis Anane went out and dropped his first ONE Championship bout. The Anane family has been working through that night ever since.
Yonis Anane returns to face British striker Freddie Haggerty in a strawweight Muay Thai bout at The Inner Circle, streaming live for members at live.onefc.com from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on Friday, May 22.
The 18-year-old youngest-ever WBC Muay Thai World Champion carries a 3-1 ONE Championship record and a 48-9 professional slate into the fight. His promotional loss came at ONE Friday Fights 147 in March against Zhao Zhengdong in a firefight that featured knockdowns from both men, on the same night Nabil lost his bantamweight title in the co-main event.
Coach Mehdi Zatout watched both brothers walk out of Bangkok that night carrying defeat. What he saw in Anane despite the result convinced him the teenage prodigy is entering a new phase entirely.
Anane has processed what went wrong. He fought with emotion instead of his mind in the third round and paid for it. His guard dropped, Zhao punished him for it, and the decision went the wrong way. That clarity is the foundation of his return.
“I made a mistake in the third round. My guard was low. That was the mistake. For me, I was winning, but then I got knocked down,” he said.
“I think I was fighting more with emotion than with my mind. That’s the reason.”
Yonis Anane enters his first full training camp
Yonis Anane has prepared for every previous ONE Championship fight while juggling school alongside training. Morning sessions before class, evening sessions after, never enough recovery time in between. For the Haggerty camp, that constraint is gone entirely.
Coach Mehdi Zatout flagged the impact immediately. With Ramadan, school exams, and an exhausting schedule removed from the equation, Anane has arrived at his most focused preparation yet. Zatout also pointed to a specific technical area the teenager has been sharpening for this fight.
“This is actually the first preparation where Yonis is no longer in school. Before, it was very difficult because he trained before school, stayed at school all day, then came back to the gym for training again. He didn’t have enough rest,” he said.
“When he started fighting in stadiums, he focused more on clinching and knees, but now we’re working a lot on his boxing skills and footwork. Muay femur fighters need movement and intelligence.”