Monarch Muay Thai's Echoes of War: A thrilling debut event

Monarch Muay Thai hosted its first event, Echoes of War, this past Saturday at Fanie Theron Primary School. The inaugural tournament featured a Muay Thai and K1 card, respectively. 

The only women’s amateur Muay Thai bout between Megan Brown from Thaiholics and Chloe Assad from Triple Threat Dojo was nail-biting.

During the first round, Brown landed swift straight punches and kicks to the torso, whilst also swarming and stifling Assad.

Assad, however, retaliated with a thunderous push-kick to the face of Brown. Brown’s nose started bleeding profusely, but that did not deter her from executing great clinch positioning and controlling the ring space.

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Assad landed push-kicks to the face of Brown every time she advanced. The third round was the most intense, with Assad sustaining a cut above the eyebrow.

Brown continued to dominate in the clinch, landing sharp knees to the abdomen of Assad, but Assad stood her ground. Brown proceeded to win the fight narrowly on points. 

The main event of the card was the WMO Pro-Am title clash between Knockout Centre’s Phillip Cronje and Thaiholics’ Dean Grobler. Both fighters displayed grit. Despite Grobler being the predominant aggressor throughout the fight, Cronje used this to his advantage by baiting him and landing counterstrikes from a southpaw stance.

The first round saw Cronje having strong clinch control, overturning the positions of Grobler whilst landing clean elbows and knees. In the third and final round, despite both fighters being fatigued, Cronje proceeded to execute strikes cleanly.

Aside from disrupting the forward rhythm of Grobler, Cronje landed combinations that either ended in a left hook to the body or a kick to the legs of Grobler, noticeably slowing him down. Cronje earned the victory and successfully retained his title. 

The Pro-Am K1 bout between Top Primate’s Likhaya Hanise and Fighterz Inc.’s Jiyaad Diedricks was nothing short of high-octane action. Diedricks was the aggressor from the first bell, landing swift combinations and briefly upsetting the rhythm of Hanise.

Despite the onslaught, Hanise maintained composure and landed off-set rhythm strikes of his own. This was arguably one of the most entertaining fights on the card, with both fighters being calculated, whilst maintaining a fast pace.

Hanise pushed the pace in the third round by walking Diedricks down, landing flush jabs and uppercuts as counters.  Hanise got the nod from the judges based on calculated aggression.

The WKU National Junior title bout between Monarch’s Quinton February and Shido Fighting Systems’ Nicholas Swart was a tactical battle.

Throughout the fight, Swart upheld the pressure by remaining in the middle of the ring, thereby limiting February’s movement.

Although both fighters displayed technical prowess, Swart created and closed distance at will. Specifically, from the third round onwards, Swart set up his punches by throwing singular low-kicks to set up high-volume boxing combinations and was out of range before February could counter.

Swart was crowned the new champion after 5 rounds of back-and-forth action.

Results:

Muay Thai Card

Caleb Newell beat Marc Lanridge via unanimous decision.

Lithai Miti beat John Deere via split decision.

Ameer Rasool beat Shaun Belo Moreiro via split decision.

Toufeeq Van Schalkwayk beat JD Moolman via unanimous decision.

Adriaan Lategan beat Matthew Scheepers via unanimous decision.

Jamie Moses beat Thando Mahlangu via split decision.

Megan Brown beat Chloe Assad via split decision.

WMO Pro-Am Title: Phillip Cronje beat Dean Grobler via unanimous decision

K1 Card

Malachi Maizbender beat Uzair Hoosain via unanimous decision.

Tapiwa Mugiyo beat Obeidullah Gierdien via TKO in round 2.

Robert Sam-Kputu beat Fawaaz Davids via unanimous decision.

Ethan Overberg beat Kiran Jeffrey via split decision.

Jayden Holmes beat Riyaan Rossouw via split decision.

Wessel Visser beat Joshua Van Dyk via unanimous decision.

Likhaya Hanise beat Jiyaad Diedricks via unanimous decision.

WKU National Junior Title: Nicholas Swart beat Quintin February via unanimous decision.

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