Sherdog Prospect Watch: An Tuan Ho

An Tuan Ho waits patiently by the phone, confident his big-league call could come at any time.

The undefeated 23-year-old flyweight prospect has jetted out to a 6-0 start to his career since he debuted under the Legacy Fighting Alliance banner in February 2022. Ho sports four finishes on his resume, highlighted by a 14-second head kick knockout of Matt Barro, a kneebar submission of Banzaragch Enkhjargal and a one-punch stoppage of Kendrick Latchman. Even though his all-terrain skills and penchant for the spectacular have made him one of the hottest commodities on the regional scene, he prefers to take his time with incremental progress.

“Other than the fights, I have been training myself to get better in the gym, just preparing for the next one,” Ho told the FightWave podcast in January. A lot of fighters just fight, fight, fight, fight. They take a lot of fights, but they don’t really get better in between the fights. Right now, I’m still pretty young and I feel like time is still on my side. I want to be a UFC champion one day, so I have to get better now before I jump into the pool. I think I’ve done a lot of improvement outside already.”

A native of Vietnam, Ho moved to the United States as a teenager. He now operates out of the MMA Lab in Glendale, Arizona, where longtime coach John Crouch oversees his training alongside a host of world-class stablemates, including current Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight titleholder Sean O’Malley.

“I look up to all those guys and try to learn as much as I can,” Ho said. “I’m really grateful to be able to train over at The Lab. I love it. Everyone there is just so good, and it forces you to get better. If you come in and do something great and you catch some people with some submissions or if you catch something that they’ve never seen before, the next week, everyone has already picked it up and found the counter for it. That forces me to even get better and learn how to counter their counters. In return, everyone is getting better. Right now, we have a huge pool of talents that are coming up.”

Ho last fought on Feb. 9, when he took a three-round unanimous decision from Miguel Sanson in the LFA 176 co-main event. He traversed considerable difficulty, as Sanson completed multiple takedowns and racked up considerable control time in a battle marked by wild scrambles and repeated positional exchanges. Ho managed to land a majority of the consequential strikes, made his way to a reverse crucifix on two occasions and threatened his counterpart’s neck with inverted triangles. Scores were 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.

“Miguel did a great job with his takedowns,” Ho said afterward. “I needed to be a little bit more controlled. I came in here a little more spazzy this time, so I needed some time to calm down. He did great with the wrestling. Hats off to him.”

Ho chalked up the bout as yet another valuable learning experience.

“I still have a lot to work on,” he said. “I’m going to go home, cover the holes and come back better.”