Twelve-time mixed martial arts world champion Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson is under no illusion that he’ll knock out ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Champion Rodtang “The Iron Man” Jitmuangnon when they square off in one of the most anticipated bouts in combat sports today.
The pair of superstars are set to clash in a Muay Thai-MMA megabout in the grand finale of ONE X set for Saturday, March 26, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The first and the third round will be competed under Muay Thai rules while the second and fourth will be in mixed martial arts. All of the rounds will be three minutes long.
While it’s fun to imagine Johnson somehow pulling a rabbit from his hat and knocking out the Thai power hitter, even the American himself doesn’t see it happening.
“No, [I don’t see a way to KO him early]. Rodtang has been hit with everything. ‘Mini T’ [Danial Williams] has clipped him. Jonathan Haggerty has clipped him. Everybody he fights, he has been clipped,” Johnson said.
“I’ve never been the athlete to go into a fight banking on myself to knock somebody out or submit somebody. I will go in there and I think to myself, ‘This is going to be a long 12-minute fight.’
“It’s like if Bruce Lee was fighting Rodtang, do you think he’d stay right in front of him the whole time and let him take all the shots? Absolutely not. So do I plan on standing toe-to-toe with Rodtang? Absolutely not. I’m going to look to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
While the match seems straightforward, with some believing that either Rodtang will knock out Johnson in Muay Thai or Johnson will submit him in the MMA rounds, that’s not the case for “Mighty Mouse.”
There are a lot of layers in this match that could determine the outcome, including the three-minute rounds.
Johnson bared that it may not be enough time for him to submit or beat up Rodtang during the MMA rounds, especially with “The Iron Man” honing his grappling and takedown defense for this bout.
At the end of the day, it’s going to be two fighters at the pinnacle of their respective sports battling in the Circle, and there’s really no easy way to determine what will happen that night.
“Three minutes is nothing. I was sparring the other day and three minutes went by and I was like, ‘That was three minutes?’ And the other guy goes, ‘Yeah, it’s too quick.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t get anything done!’” Johnson said.
“[The MMA rounds] allow me to start doing more things, but only for three minutes, and within those, the fight still starts on the feet. So let’s say I get the fight down with two minutes left. I have to start going over submissions, beat him up, try to ground and pound him. Then we go back to Muay Thai. It’s an extremely hard fight when I sit down and break it down technically.”
See the full card for the historic ONE X here and watch it live on the following channels: bit.ly/WatchONE | ONE Super App | ONE YouTube