On the first card of ONE Championship’s new deal with Amazon to stream cards live on Prime Video, two elder statesmen of modern Muay Thai faced off as nak muay (a term meaning Muay Thai fighters from Thailand) Nong-O Gaiyanghadao looked to defend his bantamweight title against the English farang (Muay Thai fighters who are from Western countries, not from Thailand) Liam Harrison.
Nong-O, known as one of the best pound-for-pound nak muay of the current era, was coming off of a devastating uppercut win over Felipe Lobo, completing his sixth title defense in quick succession since winning the inaugural ONE Muay Thai bantamweight title in 2019.
Title Defense #6! ✅
Nong-O catches Felipe Lobo with a flush uppercut and continues his reign as the most dominant Champion in the promotion.@ONEChampionship | #ONEX pic.twitter.com/2S5CdjnNO3
— Beyond Kickboxing (@Beyond_Kick) March 26, 2022
Liam Harrison, for his part, was coming off of his own knockout over the well-respected former Lumpinee Stadium champion Muangthai, which earned him a staggering $100,000 bonus from the promotion due to the fight being one of the most entertaining single round bouts in the promotion’s history. Harrison got dropped two times in quick succession to start the fight but came back with three straight knockdowns of his own to take home the victory and earn this title shot.
At thirty-five and thirty-six years of age, respectively, Nong-O and Harrison are two truly remarkable and unique examples of longevity in a sport that does not generally reward sticking around for so long. Most nak muay are fighting from a very young age in small shows in Thailand and rack up hundreds of bouts by the time they are in their mid-twenties, around which time they usually pass their prime. Nong-O, for example, has three-hundred and twenty-six bouts, but its not uncommon for someone ten years younger than him to have about as many, as seen in the record of fellow ONE champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon, who has just six less fights at age twenty-five. As a side note, Liam Harrison has a paltry one-hundred and sixteen fights under his belt, which is a bit more common among farangs.
The bout started with Nong-O working his leg kicks and jab clinically. As a fighter who builds into fights as they go it could be expected that he would not come out like a firebrand, which is usually Liam Harrison’s methodology, although for his part the challenger was being more careful here against such a tough test. However, the champion landed an big right hand early that got Liam’s attention. Soon he followed it up with a low leg kick that buckled the leg of his foe and left him visibly weakened. Another perfect leg kick followed in short order, sending the Brit to the floor and causing a ten-count. Harrison howled in pain and shook his head at one point, causing the referee called it off. The power and placement of the kicks, all right on the knee of ‘The Hitman,’ did an extraordinary amount of damage in such a short time, even relative to the the high standards of Thai leg kicks.
First Round TKO for Nong-o via leg kick 😬 #ONEChampionship pic.twitter.com/ZI7rn7ZoUL
— 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙠🦉 (@elcucxy) August 27, 2022
Liam Harrison was able to walk out of the cage with all watchers surely hoping he would have no long-term damage. Regardless, this was the lucky number seventh title defense for the legend Nong-O, his fourth knockout in a row, and he did it in less than a third of the time of any of his other knockouts in ONE Championship. It was a quick night at the office and he received a $50,000 bonus for his efficient efforts.
