More Muay Thai Masterclasses from ONE Championship

ONE Championship is dedicated to Muay Thai and the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. The promotion is running another showcase of Muay Thai excellence at the same venue with appearances from Panrit, Thant Zin, and Tomoya Maruyama.
Momentum Against Experience: Panrit versus Balyko

Muay Thai moves fast. If you’re not fighting, you’re slipping down the ranks. If you’re losing, you’re falling even faster. The only way to go forward is to keep winning. Panrit Lukjaomaesaiwaree will probably forget more about Muay Thai than Alexey Balyko will ever know. That’s just because the fight sport is ingrained into Thai fighters at an early age – that’s not to say the Russian fighter can’t win, though.
Alexey Balyko, a kickboxer and Muay Thai practitioner, is virtually carved out of stone. He has a tremendous physique, which has no doubt helped him reach ONE Championship. He’s had two Muay Thai fights before and won them both. Impressively, he won his last fight with a solid left hook 22 seconds into the second round. If he can get past Panrit with as much vigor, the promotion will have to contemplate seriously putting him in the title picture.
This fight is one for Muay Thai and MMA new sites to savor. The experienced local fighter takes on a foreign but traction-gaining opponent. This is the type of narrative that Hollywood movies are based on. Just see Rocky IV.
Myanmar’s Zin Looking for Win Against Low-Mood Opponent

Tai SorJor Piek-U-Thai (try saying that five times fast) enters his fight at ONE Friday Fights 57 in the worst possible form and headspace. He’s convincingly lost his last three fights, meaning he’s never tasted victory in ONE. His last fight saw him lose national pride as the young Malaysian Johan Ghazali knocked him out in the third round. He must win this match if he has any future in Muay Thai.
Smelling blood in the water is Thant Zin, a 19-year-old from Myanmar. This kid has already fought in ONE Championship, having had a victorious debut in February. There is a splendid omen about this young fighter. He won that fight with a left-hook KO, a similar maneuver that ended Tai SorJor Piek-U-Thai’s night last time. If Zin wins, he will become the subject of Myanmar’s MMA news websites as they celebrate his victory.
Juraev Gets Second Chance with ONE Championship
Shakhriyor Juraev is a jack of MMA trades. He’s fought in MMA, and he’s had kickboxing fights, but now it looks like his focus is Muay Thai competition, his favored combat discipline. He’s fought on ONE Championship cards before but lost both fights via unanimous decision, leaving little desire for the promotion to keep him hanging around. After losing those two fights, he returned to Uzbekistan and fought and decimated local fighter Mukhlisbek Ganizhonov. That left ONE thinking that Juraev deserved another shot, leading to his booking on this card.
The man trying to send Juraev back to Uzbekistan for good is Numpangna Eaglemuaythai, who has adopted the name Eagle Muay Thai after the gym he goes to. He will prove to be a very stern opponent. Numpangna is a fighter who is actively looking to win the KO. Most of Juraev’s fights have gone the distance, which could spell trouble for the Uzbeki fighter.
International Knockout Contest
Mikhail Gritsanenko might have been born in Russia but is now based in Indonesia, a move that reinvigorated his MMA career. Since moving to Asia, he’s gone undefeated and now boasts a 4-1 record heading into his ONE Championship debut. The ONE scouts saw what they saw on the IFL and SOMA events as Gritsanenko’s four wins have all come by knockout, the two most recent coming in the first round.
Seiya Matsuda is tasked with stopping the Russian from scoring another KO win. The Japanese fighter is undefeated, with a 3-0 overall record. Like his opponent, he also has a penchant for knockouts, ending all three fights early. The question, however, is how far can he go. He’s fought well on the Japanese-based cards promoted by Grachan, but can he step up to international competition?
Olympic Judoka Fights Uzbek MMA Pride in Show Opener
There might not be a more exciting fight on the entire card than the curtain-raiser between Khozhiniso Komoldinova and Akari Ogata. The latter represented Japan in the 2012 Olympics in judo but had a relatively poor outing, considering that she had previously won the Judo Grand Slam and placed in world championship events. Irrespective of her R16 finish in London, she remains one of Japan’s best contemporary judokas. Wanting to continue her fight career, she recently signed up with Shooto, a Japanese fight sports promotion, and won an amateur rules MMA fight and a grappling contest before getting this call up to ONE Championship.
On the other side of the cage is Khozhiniso Komoldinova, the fighting pride of Uzbekistan. Well…fighting pride might be a bit of an exaggeration. Still, there aren’t many combat sports participants from Uzbekistan (other than Juraev mentioned above), so Komoldinova fills a gap in the market. Unlike her opponent, she’s had three professional matches and earned a 2-1 overall record. Whoever wins this fight will undoubtedly be offered more opportunities within ONE Championship.
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By Dean McHugh.