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Lyndon Knowles fires back at Enfusion -90kg world champion Andrew Tate following criticism of pulling out of their scheduled fight two years ago.

Knowles recently called out ‘everyone’ in the -90kg and +95kg divisons, claiming that other fighters didn’t want to fight him and ‘out-price themselves’ to avoid the match-up.

In a recent interview, Tate had scornfully criticised Knowles for pulling out of their fight two years ago and claimed that he ‘doesn’t deserve another chance now’. In Tate’s opinion, such opportunities don’t present themselves very easily and don’t simply happen when ‘you decide you want them’.

To add more venom to his words, Tate had insisted that he would destroy Knowles in one round if they had ever fought each other.

Having watched and listened to Tate’s explosive interview with K1ANOOP, Knowles aired his thoughts on his kickboxing nemesis:

“He [Tate] sounded like an ex-girlfriend. You know when they’re jealous you’re doing really well.”

Knowles explained that he withdrew from the fight with Tate two years ago due to personal reasons and remained in defiant mood when responding to ‘Cobra Tate’.

Despite being very complimentary of the recent Super Fight Series Championship (SFSC) at St Albans Arena, Knowles held the promotion partially responsible for his decision to pull out of the previously arranged fight with Tate:

“I can’t get up and train if I don’t think the ten grand [prize money] is there.

“Remember, I’ve got two boys that won them tournaments [SFSC]. Let’s see how long it took them to get paid.

“If you do something, you expect paying that night. When you finish your work, you get paid that night.”

When asked to explain his comment, Knowles implied that the promotion had difficulties paying fighters that fought on their debut show two years ago.

However, whenever this topic of conversation has been discussed in the past with Amir Subasic who, is one of the co-owners of SFSC and Tate’s coach, he has always been adamant that despite the struggles every fighter was paid.

On the subject of other potential fights being lined up for him, Knowles shared that he ‘was booked up now’ until July 2017 for other agreed fights too.

He was also very open about a much fancied rematch with Arnold Oborotov after their first clash ‘eight or nine years ago’ and being in the early stages of possible negotiations.

Lyndon confirmed that both his coach – manager and older brother – Christian Knowles and Paul Murat who coaches Oborotov have been in contact with one another for over a week.

“The bigger fight is me and Arnold. We had I think, a B-class or C-class fight. He was knocking everyone out.

“He decided to move up. Let’s have it right, I was 112 kilos. I was a fat boy. I could barely breathe. I put it on him for four rounds.

“I felt like I won four out of five rounds. I think that’s enough to win a five round fight.

“You ask Arnold, I was probably one of the hardest fights he’s ever had.”

However, Lyndon was still disgruntled about the UK K1 Independent Rankings, which included a disagreement with Amir Subasic prompting his recent outburst.

“Knowlesy” does not comprehend nor agree with how the rankings regard fighters he’s defeated, such as Ben Vickers, being ranked above him.

One thing that can’t be denied is that Knowles (41-6-0) certainly has the eye of the tiger about him and his confidence has grown significantly with his run of good form; having won three of his last four fights since December 2015, including the decision over number four -95kg ranked Vickers at Ronin in July and a past victory over number two ranked, Aundre Groce.