ONE Championship: Superbon gives injury update for Tawanchai fight, laughs off ‘ducking’ claims
- Former kickboxing champion reveals 3.54cm muscle tear in right calf that rules him out of Muay Thai title fight on October 7
- ‘You listen to me. I’m a professional fighter, I fight everywhere in the world to become champion. Why would I fake an injury?’ he says
When the Post turned up at Superbon Singha Mawynn’s new personal gym in Bangkok for an interview last Friday afternoon, he was nowhere to be found.
Around 20 minutes later, the gym’s receptionist passed over a phone, and it was none other than the former ONE Championship featherweight kickboxing king himself.
“I’m sorry, I’m at the doctor,” he said. “I can be there in a few hours.”
A man of his word, the 32-year-old Thai returned to Superbon Training Camp and he showed the Post a series of pictures from an MRI scan, confirming a 3.54cm tear in his right calf muscle.
It put paid to any notion he was “ducking” an October 7 title fight with featherweight Muay Thai champion Tawanchai PK Saenchai at ONE Fight Night 15 inside Lumpinee Stadium.
“You listen to me,” he said, laughing. “I am a professional fighter. I fight everywhere in the world to become a champion, it’s nothing to do with that.
“We make money when we fight, we don’t get money from training. I know this is not making everyone happy – I’m not happy too. But all the time we are fighters, we want to fight.
“For me, I like to fight in big fights like this. It’s a good fight for the title. I’m waiting for that all my life, for this moment. Why would I fake an injury? It’s nothing to do like that.”
Superbon explained the injury happened during sparring nearly three weeks ago.
He had been doing a lot of running, skipping, and kicking pads in preparation for the Tawanchai fight, and suddenly fell down when putting his weight on his right leg as he moved to throw a punch in sparring.
“After that I went to the doctor straight away,” he said. “They gave me medicine but I could not walk for three days. The doctor said you need to wait for one week to see what happened.
“So after a week I went to see the doctor again, he said maybe wait two weeks to check again. One week after, I feel it’s fine – I can walk, because I stopped training for two weeks already.
“So I tried to train. I go to kick the bag one time, it still hurts, but not too much. Then I tried to kick double, quicker – boom, boom. Then I fell down again because the muscle is still not recovered.”
Superbon joked that he could fight Tawanchai with one leg, but said “you guys would not be happy”.
“After that I go back to the doctor, they say you need to take three weeks to recover 100 per cent to get back to training. I called up ONE Championship [to postpone the fight] because I cannot kick, I cannot train,” he said
“I still really want to fight. The doctor told me the minimum is six weeks to get back to training. Now I need three more weeks to recover. When I start training I hope they’re gonna book my fight.”
Superbon decided to skip attending last weekend’s blockbuster ONE Friday Fights 34 card, which was headlined by Superlek Kiatmookao’s unanimous decision win against Rodtang Jitmuangnon, knowing he would have been hounded by fans accusing him of faking it.
He also laughed off criticism from some fans on social media after taking a picture with the Japanese kickboxing icon Takeru Segawa. The former K-1 champ came to train at his gym earlier on Friday morning after landing in Bangkok, given its proximity to Lumpinee Stadium, where he watched ONE Friday Fights 34.
“I’m not training,” Superbon said, laughing. “I just woke up and came to take a picture with Takeru. I slept here in the gym. I went to shower, and put my clothes on, and took a picture with Takeru.
“People say ‘Oh, why did you train but you cannot fight?’ Come on man, I cannot train. This is the first time I ever met Takeru.
“Mikey [Musumeci] was also here last week. I cannot train with Mikey either, hopefully as soon as possible. I want to train with him because it’s a good opportunity to learn from the best, but my leg could not move, I just came to take pictures with them, walk around. Nong-O [Hama] and my trainer were still here teaching him Muay Thai.”
“Yeah, I think that’s also a great opportunity. I wouldn’t mind doing that. That’s a crazy fight everyone wants to see,” Chatri said.
Superbon also confirmed his interest in moving into MMA – but he has other business to take care of first.
“I still want to rematch Chingiz Allazov for the kickboxing belt, and I still want to have a Muay Thai belt,” he said. “Those are the first goals I want to make, and that’s really close right now.
“I have a match coming up for the Muay Thai belt and after that the boss Mr Chatri told me I have a booking with Chingiz Allazov also, but we’re waiting for the dates.”
