It’s fair to say Stamp Fairtex was at the lowest point of her combat sports career just nine months ago. Having seen both her atomweight Muay Thai and kick-boxing titles snatched from her grasp in tight decisions last year, she then suffered her first MMA defeat in February, being adjudged to have tapped out to Alyona Rassohyna’s guillotine choke with just seven seconds remaining of a fight she had dominated. But the swings in fortune this game provides are no more evident than in the case of the 24-year-old Thai, who capped an improbable triumph in ONE Championship’s atomweight grand prix on Friday night with a second-round submission victory over Ritu Phogat in the tournament final at Singapore Indoor Stadium. “I think that everyone has these kind of upsides and downfalls – it’s normal to go up and down in your life,” Stamp told the Post after her victory. “And during the last two years of training, I was jumping around moving from kick-boxing to Muay Thai and MMA, so it makes you lose kind of a balance. “But right now in this last 12 months, I’m all focused on MMA, and I’m very glad that my focus and energy came out and I made it to this moment,” she added. And so Stamp (8-1), who only had her first MMA fight just over two years ago, got a taste of what it would feel to be the first three-sport champion in Asian martial arts promotion ONE’s history. Though now comes the real thing, as her eyes turn to the ultimate prize – Angela Lee’s atomweight MMA world title. ONE: Phogat undeterred after loss – ‘I’ll bring the belt for India’ “I will have to go back and train hard to prepare for her [Lee], because she is a very well-rounded fighter and she’s good in all the aspects,” said Stamp, who trains out of the Fairtex gym in Bangkok. “I’ll have to prepare my conditioning, use more weight training and prepare really hard for this fight.” She will no doubt be a heavy underdog against the 25-year-old “Unstoppable” Canadian-American, who has been out of the ONE Circle for 25 months. Lee gave birth to her first child in April, with her pregnancy prompting this eight-woman tournament, which was designed to find her next challenger during her absence. “I also myself think I agree about that statement too, that she’s got the advantage in a lot of things, such as her experience and her ground game,” Stamp said. “Also, she’s a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt and a lot of people think I’m the underdog. But there are a lot cases where the underdog becomes the winner.” Stamp’s incredible progression in MMA is undeniable, however. She rebounded from that loss to Rassohyna by showing her much-improved ground game in grinding out a split decision win against the Ukrainian grappling specialist in September’s grand prix quarter-finals, before shutting down fearsome Brazilian striker Julie Mezabarba. She laughed, though, when the Post suggested she had made it look easy against former Indian national wrestling champion Phogat, who saw her two takedowns fizzle into nothing. “For me it wasn’t an easy fight because her strength lies within the ground game and wrestling,” Stamp said. “So I would have to say what made my victory was the training camp and the planning behind it, which is also one of the factors in my strength.” But even Stamp didn’t picture tapping out Phogat in her wildest dreams. “It wasn’t in the plan, the submission,” she admitted. “My initial game plan was to move away from the grappling, do not play the ground game with her, utilise the elbows and kicks and stand-up game, this is more of an improvisation.” No matter how she got it done, Stamp Fairtex has well and truly put Thai MMA on the map. “Yes, it is one of my biggest achievements, the best championship belt I have ever gained, because it was a huge tournament that I have won,” she said.