Nieky Holzken Talks ONE Lightweight Kickboxing World Title Campaign, Wants Trilogy With Regian Eersel

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At 39 years old, Nieky Holzken knows he is at the tail-end of his fighting career, but that isn't stopping him from chasing the ONE Lightweight Kickboxing World Championship.

"The Natural's" campaign lifts off when he returns to action on June 10 at ONE Fight Night 11: Eersel vs. Menshikov, where Holzken meets former ONE Lightweight Kickboxing World Title challenger Arian Sadikovic at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

Holzken's last performance came in March 2022 at ONE X, where the Dutch dueller came up short to fellow lightweight kickboxing standout Sinsamut Klinmee in a second-round stoppage.

But according to Holzken, he's brushed his loss to Sinsamut aside, and while he'd like to meet the Thai striker again down the road, his focus has prominently shifted to his first outing of 2023.

"I got over it very fast. I wanted to fight very quickly again. Then injuries came up. I had a broken finger after that fight from the small gloves. I know for myself that I hit very hard. If I hit them on the skull [with] the small gloves, you really have to train for [that]," he said.

"If I win this fight, maybe a rematch with Sinsamut would be good. And if I win that fight, then whoever is champion at that moment, I want to compete against for the title again."

Competing at the top of the billing that same night is a familiar foe in ONE Lightweight Muay Thai and Kickboxing World Champion Regian Eersel, the man who Holzken has gone to battle with twice in his ONE tenure.

The back-to-back World Title clashes in 2019 saw both men go a combined ten rounds against one another.

Despite losing decisions to Eersel on both nights, Holzken takes solace in being the toughest matchup that Eersel has ever had. And he believes the third time may just be the charm should he string together a few wins.

"I want to rematch Regian Eersel so, so much, even if he's not [for the championship], because I think that was a very close fight. They gave him the unanimous decision, but I think in the second round when I hit him with the knee in the liver, it was a clear knockout," Holzken said.

"He came back, he knocked me down with a knee, and I came back in the last round. He also said in the interview that [it] was the hardest round of his career. It was before the Sadikovic fight because that was also a very tough fight for him. It didn't fall my way. But my goal is to beat him one day."

Throughout the course of his career, "The Natural" has seen everything one combatant can expect to witness, and that's an evolving trait he's looking to utilise when he meets Sadikovic on 10 June.

In the legend's words, he feels he has much more to give to kickboxing, and he believes his age doesn't reflect his current capabilities. It's a message he plans to make clear in this potential World Title eliminator against the German scrapper.

"I'm going to win, and people are going to see that I don't fight like somebody who's 39," Holzken said. "I always say I am going to do something in my career that nobody ever has done in the kickboxing world."