This Week In Muay Thai: Chaila vs Yothin
Chaila Por.Lakboon vs Yothin FA Group was one of my most anticipated matches in Muay Thai recently. Chaila climbed to our
pound-for-pound #1 slot after beating View (#3) in February, while Yothin slid in at #10 due largely to his recent win over
Ronachai Tor.Ramintra.
Yothin and Chaila fought twice before, trading wins with Chaila winning the most recent fight. Their most recent fight was a banger that took place last May. Yothin established heavy pressure and clinch offense early, but Chaila sealed his win with an elbow knockdown late in the fourth round.
These fighters have styles that usually produce fireworks, as Yothin has been one of the best clinchers in the sport for nearly a decade, while Chaila is an aggressive southpaw kicker with solid hands and combinations. However, this fight ended up disappointing due to the Rajadamnern World Series’ ruleset, which we’ll get into more later.
The first round started out on Chaila’s rhythm, as he established his crafty rear kick from long range.
He was closing distance effectively with the rear kick from long distance and pairing it with his straight left in the pocket. Hopping in behind the lead leg allowed him to close distance with the kick as well, and once it landed he would flick out a short defensive teep to keep Yothin from pursuing. When Yothin backed up, Chaila would hop into the kick, and when he came forward Chaila landed it on the counter beneath his rear arm.
Once the second round started, Yothin adjusted to start taking the rear kick away. In southpaw vs orthodox matchups, it’s very difficult to close distance while maintaining your stance against a sharper kicker, since every forward step can trigger their kick. With the kicker coiled in their stance, ready to throw, the kick comes as soon as you enter range and before you have a chance to hit them. But by adjusting your stance a little and putting a hunk of bone between your ribs and their shin, you make the kick a lot more cumbersome and clear the lane for your advance.
Closing off the open side is a tried and true tactic for frustrating a superior distance operator. After losing dominantly to Kaonar in their first fight,
Rodtang re-tooled his stance for the second fight, approaching squared up with his rear leg raised and brought out in front of him. The barrier of the raised and extended shin jammed the kick, so that even when it did land clean, it didn’t have the neat pocket of the open side to cut off Rodtang’s forward movement. We saw a similar tactic from Adtewada against Jaguar recently, where
Adtewada used short, flicking teeps to occupy the route Jaguar’s kicks needed to take while he stepped into his punches and clinch work.
Yothin’s forward check won him the second round, as Chaila’s open side kick fell on the raised shin, and his teep was deflected to the side, exposing him to counter kicks. Yothin began winning kicking exchanges, blocking Chaila’s kicks and countering as Chaila recovered. When Chaila backed up, Yothin would raise the leg as if to advance behind the forward check and skip into his own kicks. He used the skipping footwork excellently to close distance and surprise Chaila with body kicks from long range.
Part of the value of that sort of marching footwork for a fighter like Yothin is that it clears the path for clinch entries. Yothin did start working into the clinch in the second round, but the referee gave him no time to work. He would wait until a clinch exchange had gone half a second without a strike thrown and immediately break them. When the clinch is broken so quickly, all the opponent has to do to neutralize it is hold on tight for a second, safe in the knowledge that the ref will rush to save them.
But as quickly as Yothin had established the forward check, Chaila started working around it by targetting his plant leg.
When Yothin raised his rear shin to advance, Chaila would toss hard leg kicks at the standing leg, threatening to break Yothin’s balance, or stand his ground and back him off with hard punches and elbows. He even used it as a neat little setup for a teep to the face, first jamming the thigh with a teep while Yothin was on one leg, then immediately going up to the head with it.
They had traded rounds going into the fourth, and now it was Yothin’s turn to implement his counter adjustment.
Yothin’s methodical advance gave Chaila time to work around his forward check, so he upped the pressure and looked to cut Chaila off, sticking him on the ropes and refusing to give ground. The forward check turned into a body kick when Chaila lashed out with his hands, and his kicks became more rushed and easily blocked as Yothin took away his time and space to work out setups. When Chaila did land his kicks, his back was near the ropes without a lot of distance to evade, so Yothin would charge him down, force him to circle out, and catch him with a kick as he circled into it.
The score was tied on two cards going into the fifth round, so the fight was up for grabs in the final frame. But Chaila was unable to get off any offense as Yothin used his suffocating clinch game to take it away.
There wasn’t a whole lot of clean work from Yothin in the clinch this round, but he kept on Chaila, marching him down and slipping under his counters to enter the clinch and land knees. With Chaila locked out of offense, Yothin took the final round on all cards and the split decision victory.
The officiating was odd here - the referee seemed desperate to jump in and separate the clinch whenever the two locked up early, but he was more permissive in the last round, even bouncing them off the ropes to allow the clinch to continue without stalling. Yothin exhibited more urgent body language - and seemed to throw a lot of useless, stay-busy knees just so the ref wouldn’t jump in. But it also seemed like exchanges that would have been sepearated in the first few rounds were allowed to play out a bit more. Yothin’s work inside was rushed, as he had to try peppering knees constantly, rather than taking the time to sort out his upper body grips and working into a position he could land more damaging knees from.
The ruleset of Rajadamnern World Series is awkward for clinch fighters like Yothin for a few reasons. The open scoring seems trickier for them to adjust to than kick or punch-heavy fighters, as clinchers often change up their tactics after the first few rounds. Dieselnoi Chor.Thanasukarn, arguably the sport’s greatest Muay Khao, preferred to wear his opponents down early by cutting off the ring and letting them bring out their weapons,
only bringing out his big knee and clinch attacks once the scoring rounds started.
With RWS’ open scoring and round-by-round system, to be effective a clinch fighter would need to adjust by forcing their clinch exchanges earlier, or risk being too far behind by the time they got going.
That disadvantage by itself would be surmountable, but the treatment of the clinch in RWS has been poor and inconsistent. Clinch fighters are given very little time to work, and any lull in the attack is treated as an excuse to seperate them, which just incentivizes opponents to stall. When clinch fighters are given time to secure their positioning, they’re able to land more damaging offense, and opponents have to risk opening themselves up to damage when attempting to transition out of the clinch.
If RWS wants to be a seperate sport that styles itself after Muay Thai while removing crucial elements akin to ONE Championship, that’s their perogative. But the problem is that, for the past year or so, all Rajadamnern Title matches have taken place under the RWS promotion. It’s getting very tiring to see the only legimitate major championship left in the sport (after elite level fights are no longer held at Lumpini) contested under an alternate ruleset that tends to produce fights that feel stilted and disjointed, with champions and contenders visibly unable to pursue their typical win conditions.
Another important factor is that while Rajadamnern title fights now take place at RWS, they don’t often hold other fights between highly ranked stadium fighters. That means that when a fighter challenges for a title, it will often be their first fight under the RWS ruleset. Imagine if every UFC Title fight was contested under bareknuckle rules - it seems patently ridiculous. But fighters whose first ever fight under RWS rules involved a Rajadamnern title include Chaila, Yothin, View, Petchsiam, Kumandoi, Khunsueklek, and Wuttikorn. It’s no wonder that we tend to get awkward fights - such as
Chaila and View dancing off the deciding round of their title fight - when fighters spend most of their time under standard stadium rules and have to suddenly switch up when they fight for a title.
Compare this fight to last year’s fight between Yothin and Chaila on a Petchyindee card:
The action flows so much better without the constant interruptions in the clinch. Yothin is able to lean into his optimal fighting style and it brings out the skillsets, tactical nous, and adjustments of both fighters so much better. Faced with Yothin’s heavy pressure and clinch work, Chaila has to work to get around it, moving laterally, standing his ground with counters, and at times closing distance on his own terms to interrupt Yothin’s entries. Yothin, enabled to pursue fully by the promise of scoring in the clinch, exposes himself to dangerous counters with his aggression. All these factors produce a thrilling moment when Yothin chases right onto Chaila’s elbow late in the fourth round, sealing Chaila’s lead.
As long as Rajadamnern title fights take place under a different ruleset than the fights that qualify fighters to challenge for the title, Muay Thai’s last truly meaningful championship will continue to be devalued.
