ONE Championship: Edgar Tabares says ‘I know I have to knock Rodtang out’ in Muay Thai title fight
- Tabares will challenges Muay Thai juggernaut Rodtang Jitmuangnon for gold at ONE Fight Night 10 on May 5 in Denver, Colorado
- ;I know that he has faced a lot of hard punchers, but he hasn’t fought a Mexican boxer,’ says the 28-year-old debutant
Edgar Tabares knows defeating Rodtang Jitmuangnon will be no easy task, to say the least. But he is adamant he cannot just beat the Thai star, but stop a man who is known for his concrete chin in ONE Championship.
The 28-year-old Mexican will challenge Rodtang for his flyweight Muay Thai belt in the co-main event of ONE Fight Night 10 on May 5 in Denver, Colorado.
The Thai champion will enter the Circle having won all 13 of his Muay Thai and kickboxing bouts with ONE, and the prevailing opinion is that he will win again at Tabares’ expense.
But Tabares believes he can use the champion’s defining attribute – unrelenting aggression – against him.
“Every single fighter who faces him tries the same thing, always,” he said. “I’m going to try his style – the aggressive style he has – I’ll try to do that.”
“I have to knock him out,” Tabares added. “If I can’t knock him out, I must show a very clear win, because he’s the champion. I have to show that I defeated the champion.
“I know that he has faced a lot of hard punchers, but he hasn’t fought a Mexican boxer.”
Tabares, a former WBC Muay Thai title-holder, will be making his ONE debut against Rodtang, who has become one of the promotion’s most imposing champions after a streak of dominant title defences against high-level challengers.
He admits he was surprised to be offered a crack at the champion – a fighter he considers a personal “idol”– in his first ONE bout, but knew it was an opportunity he could not pass up.
“It’s my debut, how can I fight for the championship? This is unfair, no? But if I said no, I don’t know if ONE would call me again,” he explained. “I had to say yes.”
Tabares said he is also drawing inspiration from fellow Mexican combat sports star Alexa Grasso ahead of his ONE Championship Muay Thai title fight with Rodtang Jitmuangnon.
Grasso pulled off a gargantuan upset recently in the UFC, submitting Kyrgyzstan’s Valentina Shevchenko – one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in MMA – to win the promotion’s flyweight belt.
But after watching Grasso defeat Shevchenko in March, the Mexican challenger is confident he can pull off the upset.
“When I saw the last fight of Alexa Grasso, I told myself if she could do it, I can do it,” he told the Post. “She was very, very focused on the fight, and the strategy, and she did it.”
ONE Fight Night 10 will be the Singapore-based promotion’s first event on US soil.
The card will be headlined by a flyweight MMA title fight, as champion Demetrious Johnson and challenger Adriano Moraes look to settle a 1-1 tie.
Flyweight submission grappling champion Mikey Musumeci will also defend his belt on the card, taking on Osamah Almarwai.
