Sitthichai victorious in Lightweight Contender Tournament

Muay Thai master Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong won the Lightweight Contender Tournament with a showcase performance against two top talents at GLORY 22 FRANCE.

After defeating Davit Kiria in the first of the evening’s semi-finals he met Canada’s Josh Jauncey to determine which of them would win the tournament and take ownership of a shot at Robin van Roosmalen’s World Lightweight Championship.

Over the course of three rounds he demonstrated just why Thai fighters are some of the hardest opponents in the world. Trained from infancy in the arts of attack, defense and evasion, Sitthichai is at 22 years old already a veteran of more than 100 professional fights.

All that experience was brought to bear as he shut Jauncey out of the fight via masterful use of distance and timing. Jauncey would often find himself kicking or punching thin air as Sitthichai moved just a fraction of an inch out of the way.

When Jauncey would press forward to try and close him down, Sitthichai would either crash a left kick into his body or hit him with a quick clinch-knee. A cut over Jauncey’s right eye earned a doctor’s inspection midway through the fight but as the blood flow was not interfering with his vision the fight was permitted to continue.

It was a frustrating experience for Jauncey and one that wasn’t helped by repeated encounters with that baseball bat of a left kick. Sitthichai is a southpaw so the left leg comes from his power side. It lands with rib-crunching force even if blocked with an arm or glove, as Jauncey found out.

Damaged and frustrated, Jauncey could only grit his teeth and soldier on as Sitthichai shut down his attacking game whilst opening him up defensively. There were isolated moments of success for Jauncey but he Sitthichai was falling for none of his tricks and Jauney couldn’t land the shots which would have forced him to respect his power.

Jauncey’s corner were calling all through the fight for him to increase his level of output. Those calls reached fever pitch in the final minute but there was nothing the Canadian could do. The round ended and with it any hope of a late Jauncey comeback. Sitthichai’s victory was assured.

“I am really happy to be here in GLORY. I look forward to the fight with Robin van Roosmalen. He will do his job and I will do mine, we will see who wins,” he said after receving the 30-27 unanimous decision win from the judges.

Regarding the punishment he inflicted with his left body kick he added, “My left kick is all I learned from seven years old!”

Semi-Final #1: Josh Jauncey vs. Djimé Coulibaly

Ironically, Jauncey booked his spot in the final by way of the same kind of astonishingly accomplished performance that he was on the receiving end of against Sitthichai. Against the veteran French fighter Djimé Coulibaly his lightning-fast combination work and use of feints and misdirection to open up his opponent were in the finest traditions of Dutch-style kickboxing.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise given that a lot of Jauncey’s training is done with Andy Souwer, the former K-1 MAX champion. A key tactic of the Dutch school is to work high and low in the same combination, attacking the head to expose the body and legs and vice versa. Jauncey employed it perfectly, hammering Djimé’s until by the third round the French fighter was falling over when a kick would land.

Under GLORY tournament rules a fight is ended when two knockdowns are scored in the same round, so when Jauncey put Dijimmy down twice in the final round he booked his spot in the final, although he had a longer fight than Sitthichai and had to throw his hands and legs a lot more than the Thai did.

Josh Jauncey def. Djime Coulibaly, TKO, R3, Two Knockdowns

Semi-Final #1: Sitthichai vs. Davit Kiria

In the first semi-final match of the evening Sitthichai became the first fighter to stop former lightweight champion and tournament favorite Davit Kiria. A close and hard-fought first round was too close to call until Sitthichai took a hard shot from Kiria as his cue to click up a gear.

Pressuring the Georgian karate stylist so he backed up, Sitthichai leapt into a flying body kick which landed so hard that the thud echoed around the Stade Mauroy - Europe’s largest indoor arena - and drew a large gasp from the crowd. Kiria staggered backwards into the ropes and Sitthichai followed him and drove a hard knee into his midsection.

Kiria went down on all fours and pressed his face to the canvas in agony as the referee began his count. At the eight second mark it seemed he may beat the count but he barely regained his feet as the referee counted ten and the fight was waved off at 2:09 of the first round to hand Sitthichai his ticket to the tournament final.

Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong def. Davit Kiria, TKO, R1, 2:09