In the opening round of One’s atomweight tournament, there were several interesting storylines, one of which involved Stamp Fairtex and Alyona Rassohyna. Earlier this year, the two fought and Alyona was awarded the win via 3rd round submission. However, there was some controversy involved, as Stamp appeared to be immediately upset, and maintained that she never tapped. As a result, when it was announced that the two would fight again in the tournament, it made this match even more important to Stamp. So that when she defeated, Alyona, she not only advanced to the semi-finals, she also avenged her sole MMA loss and showed marked improvement on the ground. Fresh off of this victory, we had a chance to speak to Stamp while she was quarantining in her native Thailand. We discussed a variety of topics, including the quarantine, her last fight, the tournament, and her love of TikTok.
Quarantine and its impact
With each country having their own rules for the pandemic, fighters from different countries have been impacted differently. This can be seen in the atomweight tournament, where Ham and Hirata were able to quarantine at their homes, Stamp had to quarantine at a hotel, and Phogat didn’t have to quarantine at all, since she didn’t leave Singapore. Stuck in a hotel room for 2 weeks, without being able to leave her room, Stamp feels thats it’s impacting the quality of her training. She told us that with her being in a tournament and the next round likely happening soon, she needs to train but training in a hotel room is not the same as training at her gym. With no access to sparring partners or coaches, she was making the best of the situation, doing mainly cardio in order to stay active. In fact, during our conversation, she received a package from her gym that contained an ab roller. It joined her growing collection of equipment, which included a grappling dummy, some mats, and some kettle bells. Outside of quarantine, she did tell us that things have started to open up in the country and that as a result, fighters with upcoming fights are able to train at the gym now.
Getting revenge and advancing to the semi-finals
When asked about her last fight, Stamp isn’t satisfied. “To be honest, I think I can do better than I did that night. I was planning to do so many things. I wanted to use my Muay Thai skills and knock her out. However, I injured my leg in training, so I was worried about it during the fight, so I wasn’t able to show myself at 100%.” However, in an interesting turn of events, her leg isn’t bothering her anymore, something she attributes to it having time to heal during quarantine where she is not training fully.
When asked to compare their first and second fight, she had the following to say, “In the first fight, I really only prepared to defend the armbar, because from what I saw on Youtube, she is really good at them. In the second fight, I wanted to do more striking because that’s what I’m good at, but she went for several takedowns and I had to defend them.” In an interesting turn of events, Alyona was able to lock on what looked like a tight armbar in this most recent fight. When asked about it, she commented, “To be honest, I knew she was going to go for the armbar in this fight…I trained very hard, so I got over it and defended it.”
In the end, she defeated Alyona by split-decision, one of two in the opening round. When asked about the judges’ decision, she talked about how exciting and surprising a split-decision call can be. “I was quite surprised. It is really exciting. I know that I lost the first round because my opponent used a lot of her ground skills, I had tried to strike but she took me down. The second round was pretty close, so I wasn’t sure if I won it or not. But in the 3rd round, I was sure that I won and I showed that I can defend an armbar. I think it was exciting and surprising.”
The Tournament
In the opening round of the tournament, Ham defeated Zamboanga, Stamp defeated Alyona, Hirata defeated Anderson, and Phogat defated Bo. Of these matches, the one between Ham and Zamboanga got the most attention, due to what some consider to be a controversial decision. The decision was even officially reviewed and upheld by the promotion. When asked about this fight, Stamp commented, “It’s really sad that my friend didn’t get to go to the semi-finals with me. I think Ham threw very accurate strikes, while Denice tried to take her down but didn’t get it, even though she tried several times. So that may be why the judges decided Ham won.”
Now that the opening round is over, the semi-final matches are going to be decided via fan voting. During the voting period, Stamp expressed a desire to fight Ham, despite comments made earlier that she wanted to fight Itsuki Hirata. When asked about this change, she commented, “I would like to fight Ham, but the Fairtex team wants me to fight Itsuki…I want to face Itsuki in the finals, so that means I need to beat Ham in the semi’s. I want Itsuki to beat Ritu and get to the finals.” When asked if she thinks Itsuki would beat Ritu, she added that, “It’ll be difficult because [I think] Ritu is very tough, especially after her seeing her last fight, so let’s see.”
TikTok
With a large social media following, Stamp has generated a lot of attention. After her recent win, she did a popular TikTok dance in cage, the video of which has generated over 2.5 million views on the platform. When asked about this video’s popularity, she commented, “I was really surprised, it’s the most viewed TikTok I’ve made. Maybe people are interested in my performance that night, so maybe that means they watched my fight then followed me on TikTok.” She then went on to add that, “I love TikTok. I love dancing, it’s one of my favorite hobbies. I don’t post everyday but its close. I like being on TikTok because I can talk to my fans and various people, I’m a single lady so I like to have fun on it.” She then went on to say that her walk out for this fight was actually inspired by a popular video on TikTok. In her free time she likes to watch videos on the platform, keeping her eyes out for dances or songs that she can use in future walkouts.
From almost retiring to being the first woman to join Team Fairtex
For those that are unaware, in Muay Thai in Thailand, women do not historically have long careers. According to fighter and chronicler Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu, most women in the sport retire around 16 or 18, when they run out of opponents or opportunities. This almost happened to Stamp too. When asked about her near retirement, she reminisced, “At that moment, I was around 18 or 19. I was about to go to university, and I felt that there weren’t any opponents for me to fight. Most of the women my age had stopped competing and gone to university and were starting to live normal lives. So I couldn’t find any opponents. But one of my trainers knew someone at Fairtex, who was looking for a woman to join the team. They asked my trainer if he knew a woman that was interested and I was, because I didn’t want to stop.”
When this opportunity came, Stamp, who had already started going to school, transferred to a school closer to Fairtex and became the first woman to join the team. Being the only woman on the team wasn’t something new to her, as she had been the only woman at her family’s gym, where she had trained up to that point. Switching to Fairtex, the differences between local gyms, like her families, and this high profile gym made an immediate impact on her and she had to adapt to her new environment. When asked to describe the difference, she commented, “Overall, let me explain the family camp, which [included people] like my father, uncle and friends in the village. We take care of ourselves, it’s very friendly, and there aren’t any rules. Fairtex is more systematic and there are rules for all the athletes and schedules and they control the diet and coaching of the fighters, so for me it’s better.”
Joining Fairtex presented Stamp with opportunities that she didn’t have before. They provided her with world-class training, a free place to live, and they even paid her university fees. This allowed her to concentrate on her studies and training, but this didn’t solve the problem she had when she was younger. There still weren’t any opponents for her to fight. As a result, she once again started thinking about leaving the sport and getting a job when she graduated. This all changed when Fairtex suggested she start training in MMA. After roughly a year of training, she made her pro-debut, caught the attention of One and signed with the promotion. The rest as they say, is history.
The Future
As a marketing student, a fighter in three sports, and a blossoming social media star, Stamp’s future is filled with possibilities. When she was younger, she went to the gym to train and compete on the local level, never thinking of fighting on a global stage or becoming a world champion. However, things have changed. Now, she wants to win the atomweight tournament and Angela Lee’s belt. Afterwards, she wants to win back One’s Muay Thai and kickboxing title. Towards this aim, she plans to focus on MMA for the remainder of the year, then switch to Muay Thai and kickboxing sometime next year. When asked which of these championships means the most to her, she replied, “The Muay Thai and kickboxing titles mean the most. Thailand is the originator of this sport, so why should we let someone else have it. This is Thailand’s belt. It is not for other countries. The tournament belt seems like something to me, it represents the next step, something I thought I could never do before, so it’ll make me happy too.”
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