As the UK’s winter lockdown stretches on, everyone seems to be yearning for some sort of comeback.
Whether it’s a big night out with pals or that first blowout holiday. Everything is so shit right now, a lot of us can’t stop thinking about how good it could be. For me, those daydreams often revolve around getting back in the ring - and it wouldn’t be a rose-tinted daydream without it ending in my hand being raised after a triumphant victory.
Here’s the problem: my opponent, whoever she might be, is probably having the exact same daydreams. And in a sport where the binary between winning and losing is as clear as day, someone’s going to end up disappointed.
As it happens, last Friday was meant to be a big comeback for one of the stars of women’s Muay Thai - Stamp Fairtex, otherwise known as the darling of One Championship’s Atomweight division.
I talk about One Championship a lot because it’s easily one of the biggest and most accessible high-level combat sports show out there. Instead of pay per view, every show is live-streamed on YouTube.
In western coverage, One Championship tends to be spoken of as the Asian UFC. But that’s too simple a comparison to make, for all the ease of accessibility reasons I mention above, but also because One Championship also hosts Muay Thai and Kickboxing bouts in its ONE Super Series. In doing so, it has provided a platform for Muay Thai athletes like never before.
It’s not to say there aren’t big Muay Thai shows - to ignore Thailand’s wealth of live and televised Muay Thai would be a huge mistake and one no true fan of the art makes. Muay Thai Grand Prix*, which looks to add Spanish and Italian shows to its internatonal roster, and Yokkao have been running shows across the world for years. And kickboxing shows like Enfusion and Glory have often hosted Muay Thai athletes.
*full disclosure, this is the show run by the team I fight for, and I’ve fought on its amateur show Road to MTGP.
But One Championship is a slick operation - and, I suspect, a well paid one. Fighters’ salaries aren’t made public like they are by UFC, but Ben Askren, one of their MMA fighters, disclosed back in 2014 that he was being paid a minimum of $50,000 USD as well as a potential $50,000 win bonus. (I am assuming that differs per athlete, do let me know if you have any insight…)
To add a little bit of spice, as the TikTokers say, One’s Muay Thai athletes fight in 4oz MMA gloves. For reference: as an amateur I fight in 12oz gloves, professionals here in the UK fight in 8oz boxing gloves. Muay Thai in 4oz gloves which barely cover your knuckles is no joke.
Increasingly, One Championship’s female Muay Thai and Kickboxing divisions have become the place for the brightest and the best female strikers. They recently snatched top tier French fighter Anissa Meksen from Glory. Iman Barlow, aka Pretty Killer, a giant of British Muay Thai who has been fighting since she was nine years old, would have fought for the Featherweight title twice by now if it weren’t for Covid.
One of their biggest stars is Nong Stamp, known as Stamp Fairtex. You might recognise the surname as it’s also the name of her gym and their brand of fight gear - in Thailand, it’s commonplace for fighters to take on fight names which include the name of their gym, e.g one of her teammates is called Wondergirl Fairtex.
She’s one of those fighters with real star quality, who understands it’s not just about how you fight, but how you get the audience on your side. In pre-Covid days, the audience would scream for her as she danced her way into the ring - and sometimes danced midway through the fight. It’s the kind of showmanship and confidence which is infectious in a fighter - especially when they can back it up.
And you better believe Stamp can back it up. The fight that got her a contract with One Championship was an MMA bout in which she knocked out her opponent with a headkick in the first 19 seconds. She tore through the Atomweight division, winning the belts in Kickboxing and Muay Thai - the first athlete in the entire championship to be a two-sport champion. The MMA belt was top of her to-do list. Then 2020 happened.
2020 wasn’t a good year for anyone - but it really wasn’t great for Stamp, who lost both her titles. She lost the Kickboxing title to Janet Todd in one of the early and eerie audience-less One Championship shows, when coronavirus first began to take hold.
And later that year, Brazilian phenom Allycia Rodrigues put on a masterclass in Thai-style fighting to snatch the Muay Thai title too. That fight was surreal to watch, as anyone who knew Thai scoring could see Rodrigues was beating Stamp, but for some reason the commentators never quite caught up, ignoring Rodrigues’ elbows and dominant kicks to talk about Stamp’s background instead.
As a bankable star for the promotion, her grief at losing was played out for the world to see. The night she lost to Todd, One posted a video of her being comforted by her team, still covered in the gold confetti which heralded a new Atomweight Champion.
This all set the stage for Friday’s fight. Stamp was making a return in MMA against Alyona Rassohnya, an Ukranian fighter known for her armbars. In her pre-fight interview, Stamp talked of losing focus in 2020 and now had her sights firmly set on the only belt in her division she has not won yet - the Atomweight MMA belt. She came prepped with her hair dyed the brightest of orange - new year, new hair, new belt (hopefully).
It was meant to be her huge comeback. And in some ways it was. She dominated the fight and even withstood most of her opponent’s onslaught on the ground. Stamp had yet to face as formidable a grappler as Rassohyna, and it was a joy to see her rise to the occasion in a side of martial arts she isn’t known for. BJJ enthusiasts were losing their minds in the comments as she attempted complex, high-level submissions.
Until the last 30 seconds. Rassohyna did what any fighter who knows they’re losing on points would do - she played to her strengths and caught Stamp in a choke. The clacks which signal the remaining seconds in the round played out - if Stamp was in trouble, she only had to deal with it for a smidge longer to gain that victory. But she tapped. It was all over.
Or did she? Well, according to Stamps immediate protests, she didn’t tap. According to her post-fight Instagram caption, she was trying to push her opponent’s face, but it really, really, looked a lot like a tap - and ultimately, the referee did what he is there to do. Perhaps training took over, perhaps it was an honest mistake.
But with three seconds to go in the fight, Stamp’s 2021 comeback had been dealt a bitter blow. Instead of this being Stamp’s big comeback story, the first notch on her way to the belt, this was a tale of how Rassohyna beat the odds and triumphed in the fight’s last gasping seconds.
You can hopefully see why I can’t stop thinking about this fight. Stamp’s young and will bounce back - you win or you learn, as the saying goes. She’ll return to the ring smarter and stronger.
It’s also made me wary of dreaming too much about a joyous comeback. My mental health is in the toilet right now in part because of the pandemic, sure, but my depression and anxiety won’t simply disappear into the ether once life begins again. If this hellhole of a pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that for too long I’ve been using Muay Thai and fighting as a band aid for problems which run much deeper.
If I buy into my own comeback daydreams too much, even if I do everything right, it’s not going to fix the root of these issues. I hope, when the time comes to return to the ring, I’ll enjoy it for what it is: a welcome home.
My Wednesday deadline went out the window, sorry, but maybe next week? We can only hope. Let me know if you thought this newsletter was a pile of poo because I’m trying something a bit different this week and seeing how it goes. I’ve talked about One and its athletes a lot so I wanted to write a sort of primer for future reference. If there are any other things you think I should cover, let me know!