Friday, July 22, 2011

Thoughts and Video of my Most Recent Fight: Maalai vs. Johnny

Fighting Maalai, a veteran of 113 fights taught me a lot.  I've always heard the quote, "Everyone has a game plan, until they get hit."  And in this case it was true for me.  My game plan was to keep a tight guard, pick him apart with jabs and straight punches and follow through with kicks.

It's hard to see it in the video but I got caught with a couple quick elbows in the first 30 seconds of the fight.  It totally caught me off guard as Thai's generally don't throw elbows in the first round, and these hit me hard.  I got caught once in the forehead, under my nose, and again on the top row of my teeth.  Luckily I had a custom made mouth guard from Kombat Mouthguards, which saved my teeth.

Getting the Muay Oil applied before the fight - it numbs your nerves and loosens your muscles

With fresh flowers and a boxers robe - I just want to hurry up and take it off so I can fight.


I lost all of my composure and the Altered Beast came out in me.  I wanted to kill the guy.  I remember after the second elbow thinking to myself, "Fuck this, if he wants to elbow, I'll show him a fucking elbow." and proceeded to throw big right elbows, crashing through his attempts.   That stopped him for a bit.  Another thing that you can't see on camera is my facial reaction when he was in the corner.  Out of no where he kicks me straight in the balls.  Luckily I was wearing a metal cup.  I gave him and the ref a "WTF" look and the continued to bash him in the corner.

I lost my composure and opened up with big right hooks to the body and head, opening myself for even more elbows to my face, until I finally got myself to calm down and keep my guard up.

Things I learned from this fight:

No matter what I cannot lose my cool, I need to keep a tight guard at all times.
No more big right hooks, I need to keep my punches straight and crisp.
I shouldn't try to go for the knockout too soon in the 1st round, I need to have more patience.
Pushing the pace like a Manny Pacquio at 205lbs is tough on the cardio.
I need to start punishing people in the clinch instead of giving them my opponent time to rest.
I need to start using the short left elbow.
I have a strong knee and need to start adding it into my game.

Anyways, here's the fight to check out for yourself.



My new official Muay Thai Record - 4 fights with 3 wins and 1 loss.

I'll keep training hard, see you guys soon,

Johnny, My Fight Camp

7 comments:

  1. Congrats on the win Johnny. You were looking good in there. Keep on training hard.

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  2. AnonymousJuly 23, 2011

    congrats johnny! looks like your opponent dropped his mouth guard on purpose to take a breath?!?

    -Ahmed

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  3. Steve - thanks for the props bro, I'll keep training hard for the next one!

    Ahmed - Yeah he was Veteran and knew all the tricks. I was surprised he didn't have his corner rinse it off with water first to get a few extra seconds to rest.

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  4. Congrats on the win!

    He sure throws alot of elbows, but u had a good advantage on the boxing. RESPECT!

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  5. Congrats on the win Johnny! Glad all the hard work paid off! Keep training hard!

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  6. Nice one Johnney, nice quick pace from the start, best way to beat a Thai, had some great sweet, crisp kicks, nice combo's, his head must have been beating after the fight.
    I wanted a knee 1:07, would have had him!!!

    Keep it up, your a killer!!!!

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  7. Ken, Spider and Fight Bah - thanks for the congratulations guys.

    Spider2 - Yeah man I've been rewatching the video a lot and saw a couple chances I could have thrown a knee. This was the first fight where I used knees and it's good to add it to my arsnel.

    I learned a lot from this fight and the best thing is after watching my last fight against Lombok, I see myself progressing and getting better each time.

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Hey if you've read this far, you might as well at least leave a comment. Even just to say what's up! If you have any questions about training in Thailand just ask it here in the comments and I'll answer so everyone can benefit from it.