ONE CHAMPIONSHIP: PRAJANCHAI’S ‘RELIEF’ AFTER CLAIMING KICKBOXING STRAWWEIGHT TITLE

• A local hero in Bangkok, he said after the victory that he felt the pressure of fighting in front of his supporters at Lumpinee Stadium

Prajanchai PKSaenchaigym earned a far from convincing decision win over Jonathan Di Bella to capture the kickboxing strawweight title in the ONE Friday Fights 68 main event.

A local hero in Bangkok, he said after the victory that he felt the pressure of fighting in front of his supporters at the Lumpinee Stadium.

As well as the fans inside, Prajanchai is loved by those watching on television as well, with millions of viewers tuning into the fight which was only available on pay-per-view.

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"I'm very happy," he said. "I feel like it's such a relief because before I felt like there was pressure for me to hold the expectations of Thai people to get this belt for all the Thai people."

All three judges scored the fight for Prajanchai, but DI Bella caused him plenty of problems, particularly in the opening round which the Canadian won.

And Prajanchai said after there was plenty of room for improvement after beating "one of the top fighters in the world".

"So, of course the fight wasn't going to be easy," Prajanchai said. "But I think I did enough. But there's room for improvement, of course."

Prajanchai was warned multiple times for clinching and a point deduction could have potentially changed the course of the fight.

The Muay Thai veteran said he had to make some adjustments before competing under a less familiar set of rules.

"It's not too difficult," he said. "It's doable, of course. I have spent a lot of time training so all the things that cannot be done in kickboxing, the elbows and the knees, we just omitted all of those.

"So it was a little bit of an adjustment, but of course it could be done."

The victory was significant because Di Bella was unbeaten, going into the fight with a perfect record both as a professional and an amateur, but this was not a motivation for Prajanchai.

"Of course I'm happy to get the victory tonight but it's not just because I stopped his winning streak or anything," he said. "I feel like I did my best.

"I feel like it's just normal that another person lost or won this fight but what's more important to me is that I did my best today."

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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2024-06-30T22:46:36Z dg43tfdfdgfd