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2023 has already been a banner year for ONE Championship. The Singapore-based martial arts organization has promoted eight exciting events on Amazon’s Prime…
2023 has already been a banner year for ONE Championship. The Singapore-based martial arts organization has promoted eight exciting events on Amazon’s Prime…
Reigning ONE flyweight Muay Thai world champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon is training harder than he has in years for his highly anticipated clash with Superlek Kiatmoo9. On September 22, the two Thai superstars will step inside the ring at the legendary Lumpinee Boxing Stadium for a fight that fans have been dreaming about for years. The […]
Reigning ONE flyweight Muay Thai world champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon is training harder than he has in years for his highly anticipated clash with Superlek Kiatmoo9.
On September 22, the two Thai superstars will step inside the ring at the legendary Lumpinee Boxing Stadium for a fight that fans have been dreaming about for years. The pair were scheduled to scrap in March, but Rodtang withdrew from the contest, citing an injury sustained while training. However, ‘The Iron Man’ would go on to defend his title against Edgar Tabares at ONE Fight Night 10 on May 5, leading many to believe that ‘The Iron Man’ pulled out of the fight for fear of losing.
“Before the fight was made, everyone around the world said Rodtang was scared and the fights would never happen but I know these guys behind the scenes,” ONE CEO and founder Chatri Sityodtong said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “I talk to these guys all the time. Rodtang is not scared of anybody. This guy is on a tear and a high in his career. He hasn’t been beaten in many years. When you have that confidence you’re unbreakable.”
Will Rodtang Jitmuangnon vs. Superlek Kiatmoo9 go down as the greatest Muay Thai showdown in history? Don't miss ONE Friday Fights 34!
#MuayThai #ONEChampionship pic.twitter.com/pTZyhbsg9M
— Sportskeeda MMA (@sportskeedaMMA) September 14, 2023
Both men enter the bout undefeated in the art of eight limbs under the ONE banner, but they got there through very different means. While Superlek is known for his incredible discipline and work ethic, already fighting four times in 2023, ‘The Iron Man’ has a penchant for taking things relatively easy during training camp.
“Talk to experts around the world and in Thailand. People think Superlek is going to win, but I don’t know. The more I think … Rodtang has been training very hard. He was not training at all before, I think he trained two days for the Edgar Tabares fight, literally a two-day camp, and his wife outed him on that one. I had no idea he trained two days, but that’s the level of talent he has,” Sityodtong said.
Despite the lack of training, Rodtang has scored 12 straight Muay Thai victories in ONE Championship, beating some of the biggest names in the sport including current ONE world champions Joseph Lasiri and Jonathan Haggerty on two separate occasions.
Sityodtong believes Rodtang’s casual approach to training could ultimately cost him, but acknowledged that ‘The Iron Man’ is taking his fight with Superlek seriously and is training harder than he has in years for the long-awaited showdown.
“That’s the downfall of every great fighter. When you saw [Mike] Tyson in his heyday when he was coming up he was disciplined, training like a madman. But towards the end of his career when he lost to Buster Douglas, he started having problems at home and then he didn’t train. Eventually got knocked out, it happens to the best of them,” Sityodtong said.
“But Rodtang is very motivated, and he’s been training very hard every day. From my understanding from both camps, they are both in unbelievable shape.”
Rodtang knows how to pick ‘em
Will "The Iron Man" keep his flyweight Muay Thai throne as Superlek comes to challenge him on September 22?#ONEFridayFights34 | September 22 at 7:30PM ICT/8:30AM ET
— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) September 8, 2023
Today, Rodtang ranks as the highest-paid Muay Thai fighter in the history of the sport, earning 10 million baht, or roughly $285,000 per fight. That success has allowed ‘The Iron Man’ to buy a home for his parents, a dream car for himself, and amass a very respectable collection of shoes. But as we’ve seen with fighters like Irish megastar Conor McGregor, money changes everything. Rodtang is still competing and dominating at the highest level, but if he doesn’t focus on the task at hand, he could find himself on the losing end for the first time in years.
“It’s human nature,” Sityodtong added. “When you have nothing you are willing to train all day, all night. When you have everything, it really takes a special extraordinary athlete to say I want to train even harder and be the very best in history. I think that it’s widely known Rodtang doesn’t train very hard. Ever since he won the world title in ONE, he hasn’t been razor-sharp and trained every day.
“When you have a two-day training camp, that’s pretty insane to me, actually that was shocking to me. Whereas Superlek is known to be very disciplined. He trains day in, day out, whether he has a fight or not. To each his own at the end of the day. Rodtang is fighting for his family, Superlek too, and for the right to be the pound-for-pound best in the world.
“By now, both are so experienced, each has fought 300 fights. I think Rodtang is up to 400. These are killers who have been fighting all their lives. They know their bodies and how to peak, they also know how to relax and stay calm and level-headed. A lot of times in camp, when you’re training hard and being singular-minded, you can almost mentally mess with yourself before you even step in the ring, so I think [the water park visit] is Rodtang’s way of letting the steam off.”
Fight fans can catch Rodtang vs. Superlek as part of ONE Championship’s stacked ONE Friday Fights 34 event on September 22. The festivities are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. EST and will air live and for free on the promotion’s YouTube channel.
Former undisputed flyweight champion, Demetrious Johnson has scoffed at the clinch game and work of incumbent bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling following a bizarre offer from the Uniondale native ahead of UFC 292 this weekend. Johnson, the inaugural flyweight champion under the banner of the UFC, currently holds the undisputed flyweight equivalent under the scrutiny of […]
Former undisputed flyweight champion, Demetrious Johnson has scoffed at the clinch game and work of incumbent bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling following a bizarre offer from the Uniondale native ahead of UFC 292 this weekend.
Johnson, the inaugural flyweight champion under the banner of the UFC, currently holds the undisputed flyweight equivalent under the scrutiny of the Chatri Sityodtong-led ONE Championship banner.
Yet to confirm plans on his potential retirement from mixed martial arts competition, Kentucky native, Johnson recently booked an outing in submission grappling, having remained sidelined since landing a trilogy rubber match win over Adriano Moraes in a flyweight title defense earlier this year.
And as for Sterling, the undisputed bantamweight champion is slated to headline UFC 292 this weekend in Boston, Massachusetts, taking on surging challenger, Sean O’Malley at the TD Garden in a fourth attempted successful title defense.
However, ahead of his return to ‘Bean Town’, Sterling made a leftfield proposition to Johnson, claiming he would be interested in fighting him if the former wanted to earn revenge for his prior win over common-foe, Henry Cejudo.
Breaking down a potential clash with the Serra-Longo MMA staple, Johnson claimed that in a clinch exchange, Sterling leaves a lot to be desired.
“I feel his (Aljamain Sterling) weakness is he has no clinch game,” Demetrious Johnson told MMA Fighting. “Like, I would eat his ass up for breakfast in the clinch game. I feel like rhythm-wise, I move way better than he does on the feet – grappling; he is longer, so I would never let him get my f*cking back, because he’ll lock them f*cking ‘Funkmaster’ legs in a body triangle like he did on Petr Yan, and they’ll have to survive him doing that.”
“The one thing he does that helps to my advantage is that he crosses a distance for me, right,” Demetrious Johnson explained. “He does this [jabs] and a funky-ass kick, and I’m like, ‘Perfect, come here, I wanna show you a thing called a Muay Thai clinch.’ I just feel like I’ll eat him alive in a clinch.”
ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong is firmly on the side of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to the tech billionaire’s ongoing feud with the Titan of Tesla, Elon Musk. The ongoing rivalry between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly hit a boiling point after Musk revealed a series of details regarding his […]
ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong is firmly on the side of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to the tech billionaire’s ongoing feud with the Titan of Tesla, Elon Musk.
The ongoing rivalry between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly hit a boiling point after Musk revealed a series of details regarding his long-teased cage match with the Meta CEO. However, those claims, including one that the UFC would not be involved in the promotion of their fight whatsoever, were quickly debunked by Zuckerberg. In fact, ‘The Zuck’ even went so far as to advise that any news regarding the fantasy matchup should be disregarded unless it comes from him directly.
Shortly after, Zuckerberg suggested that it could be “time to move on” from discussing the proposed social media smackdown, adding that Elon Musk was not taking the contest seriously. Musk has since responded, threatening to show up at Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto to fight him right then and there. A comment that has drawn the ire of the MMA community.
That includes ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong who delivered his lengthy take on the Musk vs. Zuckerberg debate via Facebook. Sityodtong, a lifelong martial artist himself, sided with Zuckerberg and slammed Musk for his bully-like antics.
“I normally don’t like to get involved in other people’s spats, but I am compelled to say something on the latest development of the potential fight between Mark Zuckerberg vs Elon Musk,” Sityodtong wrote. “A few hours ago, Elon said that he was planning to show up to Mark’s house to fight him. Elon is one of the greatest entrepreneurs in history and I have a lot of respect for his guts, accomplishments, and intellect. However, I dislike bullying of any kind.
“First, Elon genuinely knows nothing about fighting or martial arts despite his claims to the contrary. As a lifelong expert martial artist who has been in my fair share of scraps, I can tell simply by the way he is acting. The problem with most men who have never fought and/or trained seriously in martial arts is exactly what Elon is doing. They have a false sense of bravado and no understanding or appreciation for what technical skills and knowledge can do in a fight. A legit blue belt in jiu-jitsu is very dangerous to someone who knows nothing.
“As CEO of the world’s largest martial arts organization and someone involved in the fight game as my life, I know when people want to fight or not. When people want to fight, they accept a fight and simply show up,” Sityodtong continued. “When people don’t want to fight, they do exactly what Elon has been doing. They make up excuses, conditions, and reasons for avoiding the fight. Elon has made up puzzling excuse after excuse, be it the need for surgery, the need to do it in the Coliseum in Italy, the idea of doing it through his and Mark’s foundations, the idea of a backyard practice run, etc.
“The global martial arts community is small. Consensus from people who have trained with Mark and/or Elon is that there is a large gap in skills in favor of Mark. Mark might be new to martial arts, but he is a real martial artist. He is a legit blue belt in jiu-jitsu under Dave Camarillo and consistently trains hard multiple times a week. Professor Dave is genuinely one of the finest black belts on the planet and his knowledge of both jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts is unparalleled.
“I trained with Mark at his house a few months ago together with his teammates under Professor Dave. As a brown belt under Renzo Gracie, I can tell you that the training environment was truly world-class with utmost seriousness and intensity. Mark might be only 2 years into his journey as a martial artist, but he has fully adopted the warrior way of life.
“In my expert opinion, Mark will likely choke Elon unconscious in a fight. Elon could win by a lucky punch due to his size and weight. He’s 186cm and weighs 100kg. Mark is 171cm and weighs 70kg. However, Mark is in fighting shape and Elon is not. Mark has the gas tank for 3 rounds and Elon has the gas tank for 3 minutes.
“As all martial artists know, skill often trumps size when there is a large disparity in skill. I am not saying that Mark will win 100%. A fight is a fight. Elon could get lucky. What I am saying though is that Mark has a very high probability of winning.“
ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong is firmly on the side of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to the tech billionaire’s ongoing feud with the Titan of Tesla, Elon Musk. The ongoing rivalry between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly hit a boiling point after Musk revealed a series of details regarding his […]
ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong is firmly on the side of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to the tech billionaire’s ongoing feud with the Titan of Tesla, Elon Musk.
The ongoing rivalry between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly hit a boiling point after Musk revealed a series of details regarding his long-teased cage match with the Meta CEO. However, those claims, including one that the UFC would not be involved in the promotion of their fight whatsoever, were quickly debunked by Zuckerberg. In fact, ‘The Zuck’ even went so far as to advise that any news regarding the fantasy matchup should be disregarded unless it comes from him directly.
Shortly after, Zuckerberg suggested that it could be “time to move on” from discussing the proposed social media smackdown, adding that Elon Musk was not taking the contest seriously. Musk has since responded, threatening to show up at Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto to fight him right then and there. A comment that has drawn the ire of the MMA community.
That includes ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong who delivered his lengthy take on the Musk vs. Zuckerberg debate via Facebook. Sityodtong, a lifelong martial artist himself, sided with Zuckerberg and slammed Musk for his bully-like antics.
“I normally don’t like to get involved in other people’s spats, but I am compelled to say something on the latest development of the potential fight between Mark Zuckerberg vs Elon Musk,” Sityodtong wrote. “A few hours ago, Elon said that he was planning to show up to Mark’s house to fight him. Elon is one of the greatest entrepreneurs in history and I have a lot of respect for his guts, accomplishments, and intellect. However, I dislike bullying of any kind.
“First, Elon genuinely knows nothing about fighting or martial arts despite his claims to the contrary. As a lifelong expert martial artist who has been in my fair share of scraps, I can tell simply by the way he is acting. The problem with most men who have never fought and/or trained seriously in martial arts is exactly what Elon is doing. They have a false sense of bravado and no understanding or appreciation for what technical skills and knowledge can do in a fight. A legit blue belt in jiu-jitsu is very dangerous to someone who knows nothing.
“As CEO of the world’s largest martial arts organization and someone involved in the fight game as my life, I know when people want to fight or not. When people want to fight, they accept a fight and simply show up,” Sityodtong continued. “When people don’t want to fight, they do exactly what Elon has been doing. They make up excuses, conditions, and reasons for avoiding the fight. Elon has made up puzzling excuse after excuse, be it the need for surgery, the need to do it in the Coliseum in Italy, the idea of doing it through his and Mark’s foundations, the idea of a backyard practice run, etc.
“The global martial arts community is small. Consensus from people who have trained with Mark and/or Elon is that there is a large gap in skills in favor of Mark. Mark might be new to martial arts, but he is a real martial artist. He is a legit blue belt in jiu-jitsu under Dave Camarillo and consistently trains hard multiple times a week. Professor Dave is genuinely one of the finest black belts on the planet and his knowledge of both jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts is unparalleled.
“I trained with Mark at his house a few months ago together with his teammates under Professor Dave. As a brown belt under Renzo Gracie, I can tell you that the training environment was truly world-class with utmost seriousness and intensity. Mark might be only 2 years into his journey as a martial artist, but he has fully adopted the warrior way of life.
“In my expert opinion, Mark will likely choke Elon unconscious in a fight. Elon could win by a lucky punch due to his size and weight. He’s 186cm and weighs 100kg. Mark is 171cm and weighs 70kg. However, Mark is in fighting shape and Elon is not. Mark has the gas tank for 3 rounds and Elon has the gas tank for 3 minutes.
“As all martial artists know, skill often trumps size when there is a large disparity in skill. I am not saying that Mark will win 100%. A fight is a fight. Elon could get lucky. What I am saying though is that Mark has a very high probability of winning.“
Ahead of his return to the Octagon at UFC 292 this weekend in Boston, Massachusetts, Aljamain Sterling has made a wholly surprising offer to welcome current ONE Championship kingpin, Demetrious Johnson to the promotion again – if he’s seeking revenge for common-foe turning training partner, Henry Cejudo. Sterling, the current undisputed bantamweight champion, is slated […]
Ahead of his return to the Octagon at UFC 292 this weekend in Boston, Massachusetts, Aljamain Sterling has made a wholly surprising offer to welcome current ONE Championship kingpin, Demetrious Johnson to the promotion again – if he’s seeking revenge for common-foe turning training partner, Henry Cejudo.
Sterling, the current undisputed bantamweight champion, is slated to headline UFC 292 this weekend at the TD Garden, taking on incoming title chaser, Sean O’Malley in a main event championship bout.
As for Johnson, the former UFC flyweight champion currently holds the ONE Championship flyweight title equivalent, managing to land a title trilogy rubber match win over Brazilian rival, Adriano Moraes back in May in a close decision victory.
And despite weighing up a potential retirement from combat sports competition, Kentucky native, Johnson, who recently booked a submission grappling outing – has maintained he is still unsure if he will continue with mixed martial arts competition.
However, according to Sterling, if the decorated flyweight kingpin – who has since trained alongside Cejudo following their double salvo of fights, wants to challenge him for bantamweight spoils, the door is firmly open.
“He’s (Demetrious Johnson) too little, man,” Aljamain Sterling told at a Q&A session ahead of UFC 292. “‘Mighty Mouse’ is great, but he’s too little. There’s a reason he why he lost to [Dominick Cruz], it wasn’t a skill deficiency, it’s size.”
“He’s skilled, but I think father time has passed him a little bit. If he wants this work, try to get some revenge for Henry (Cejudo), I can beat your boy, too,” Aljamain Sterling explained. “So, ‘Mighty Mouse’, where you at?”
Revenge?
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) August 15, 2023
Johnson, who still holds an Octagon record for consecutive successful title defenses with a whopping 11 straight championship knockbacks, ended his mind-boggling UFC tenure on the wrong side of a close decision rematch loss to common-foe, Cejudo back in 2018.
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