Muay Thai Stuff’s Blog

Round 1
I could not see the difference between two of them at this round. They seems have equal ability and skills to fight, I even encourage John was a little bit better than Yod Saen Klai, in terms of defensive techniques such as grab legs and kick blocks. But when things happens, John got down by a very hard punch, which the announcer mentioned that it was a luck for Yod Saen Klai, but I would see different when John is losing control of his defense when tried to grab Yod Saen Klai’s leg, and Yod Saen Klai obviously saw the opportunity.

Round 2
This round is like a clock-wise situation, I don’t know why Youd Saen Klai lost his control as he seem to be able to keep the situation under control. But when he got a big “set” of punch from John, Yod Saen Klai is no longer advantage. Based on my own analysis, Yod Saen Klai seemed to under estimate John’s ability to recover and skills. This may be due to he believe that he will easily overcome John from the punch that took John down in the first round. And when John had realised the situation that he could bring back the advantage, then many sets of punch keep following. The last minute of round 2 is very important for John, he was shot down again with the obvious that he is losing his power, Yod Saen Klai’s opportunity rise again.

Round 3
Round 3 looks better for John, but also to Yod Saen Klai. Seems both of them were a little bit more careful on what is going to take as they know that one of them could be knocked at any time. While John was using this round to relax and he hope to recover and give his full power to the last two round, Yod Saen Klai seemed tried to finish the fight as soon as possible. The situation like this demonstrated that apart from power, good fighters always work on “strategy” throughout the fight.

Round 4
Round 4 was not exciting as expected. I was supposed to see more aggressive and advanced techniques from both of them but it looks they are completely losing power to fight. Especially for Yod Saen Klai. Once he know that he did very good job for the first two round, then it is unnecessary to hurry or put himself too aggressive, which may be giving John opportunity to strike back. While John was also lack of power, but still looked for a chance to make miracle.

Round 5
John had nothing to lose at this round and he actually did very well and impressive. But it seems not good enough to become a winner. Using clinching and short punch were very good strategies for at the end of the match while the fighter know that he is almost lost the power, but Yod Saen Klai was too good. Tried not to join the clinch and keeping away to find opportunity to attack, this strategy had made Yod Saen klai is the top winner of the Contender Asia. The result of the fight proves that perfect fighter still exist, even though is tournament was just a TV show in any perspective, but the fight is the fight and Muay thai fighters are not for the TV shows they are all fighters who want to fight, no matter what’s it that for.

This fight is very interesting. But not because it is from the most popular Muay Thai reality show “Contender Asia” but what interest me is that Yodsaenklai seemed to get much more advantage over Bruce in terms of both power and strategy but he looked not to use maximum of his advantage and potential to give KO to Bruce. Even though he showed the great power of punches and kicks but I strongly believe that he could do better than that. Bruce also had very good skills of Muay Thaibut still not enough to fight with Yodsaenklai, especially for his defensive technique to block the kicks, as his friend said that he should not use arms to block kicks and use leg instead. However, it was a good fight to learn.

The strongest one

During the week, I think there was nothing special after Rafik gone. A fighter is a fighter. After the fight, anger feeling was gone. The loser accepted the referee decision, the winner respected the loser. Like Dzhabar said, “Respect the fight. but not the mouth”.

Turning to the elimination fight, Yodsaenklai was fighting against Bruce. In my opinion, Bruce is a good fighter. He has good skills and strength. However, when facing Yodsaenklai, it was a different story. It is not that Bruce was not good, but it is Yodsaenklai that is very strong. His weapons were super fast, accurate and strong. I think he was not 100% because I see only his kicks and punches. He didn’t use his knees and elbows much.

So far, I think Yodsaenklai will go to the final.

Here is their fight: