On October 15th, 2021, one of best kickboxers of all time was knocked out in less than 4 minutes.
Giorgio Petrosyan, known as “The Doctor” for his surgical-like technique and precision, is a kickboxing legend by all accounts. His technique, ringcraft and impregnable defense helped him amass an impressive record and legendary status.
His opponent, Superbon Banchamek, is a past Lumpinee Stadium fighter and teammate of Buakaw Banchamek. He is infamous for his brutal kicks and his immeasurably high fight IQ. Training since 5 years old, he knows a little thing or two on how to fight.
When breaking down a fight, it’s important to know the strengths of the fighters and to keep them in mind. It will help you see specific strategies and tendencies each competitor has. Let’s look at some of them and get back to them later.
Listed on ONE’s official website, here’s some things we can look out for.
– Petrosyan’s boxing skills
– Superbon’s push kicks
– Petrosyan’s left knee
– Superbon’s powerful kicks
If you want to watch the fight, the video is linked below. Otherwise, on to the breakdown!
As the fight begins, they touch gloves, and Superbon throws the first strike of the fight – a high right roundhouse. Petrosyan raises his guard and leg to check, the kick ends up hitting his arm. This is a concept to focus on in this fight. These kicks to the arm do add up, and if it keeps landing then Superbon can create strategies around this technique.
Petrosyan slowly closes the distance, utilizing his close stance and keeping a light bouncing lead leg to check kicks. As noted by the first kick thrown by Superbon, he uses his lead leg to cross check quite frequently.
Petrosyan throws a jab, Superbon extends his arm out, and the jab goes clean down the middle. In this exchange, Superbon extends his arm directly out, and his rear leg takes a step back. This suggests that he was trying to use a long guard and a step back to maintain distance, to avoid getting hit by a combo.
Superbon extends his arms instead of shelling up
It’s only 20 seconds into the first round now, and Superbon throws another high right kick with no setup. Petrosyan lifts his lead leg to check just like before, and the kick hits his arm predictably.
As predicted, Superbon tries to employ teeps to keep Petrosyan out of punching range. In this example, he throws a rear teep aiming for Petrosyan’s rear leg. He ends up getting caught with a punch, but Petrosyan does not attempt to follow up with any other strikes.
Superbon then immediately employs a rear teep feint to maintain the distance and keep Petrosyan on his toes, and he throws a lead teep when Petrosyan enters jabbing range.
Superbon then proceeds to set up a kick by throwing a cross, followed by another high right roundhouse. It’s only 40 seconds into the round now, and Petrosyan has now absorbed 3 of these powerful kicks to his arm. These do add up.
Superbon continuously throws teeps, and utilizes a long guard to keep Petrosyan out of punching exchanges. But Petrosyan is a fantastic boxer, and he slips through with a lead uppercut and cross during one of these defensive maneuvers.
Now in exchanging range, Superbon throws a looping hook around Petrosyan’s head and uses it to pull him into a clinch. Petrosyan’s posture is already broken at this point, proving it was a wise decision from Superbon.
In the following clip, we can see a close striking exchange between these fighters. It highlights Petrosyan’s boxing skills, as well as the skill of Superbon himself. He’s able to throw punches when it counts, mix it in with a beautiful kick and a clever knee, as well as an intelligent kick while exiting range.
Now in this clip, we can see one of Superbon’s teeps and Petrosyan trying to catch it. Superbon has been throwing a lot of teeps in this fight, so it’s only natural to want to counter off of it. But lowering your hands to catch is a risky move. Superbon throws a kick after the teep, to keep Petrosyan looking out carefully for both weapons.
The rest of the round plays out similarly.
At the end of the first round, Superbon definitely seemed to be following a specific game plan. He threw lots of right head kicks, which were all consistently landing. He threw teeps and teep feints to keep Petrosyan back, and clinched in punch exchanges.
When the second round starts, Superbon immediately throws another right head kick. Petrosyan takes it to his guard again. Another is thrown, déjà vu.
Petrosyan is definitely putting the pressure on Superbon, walking him into the cage. Superbon throws a teep to keep him back, and then we get this beautiful clip here.
Petrosyan tries to trip, Superbon goes in with it and grabs Petrosyan’s neck to gain balance.
Another punch exchange happens after and Superbon ends up throwing 3 right kicks. 1 to the body, 1 to the body, and 1 to the head… Petrosyan’s hands aren’t up and he goes out.
In Retrospect
At the beginning of this post, I brought up on what ONE said would be important factors in this fight. Were they true? Absolutely.
ONE listed Petrosyan’s boxing skills as a very important factor, and it was clear Superbon’s gameplan was built with this in consideration. As brought up time and time again, Superbon would throw a lot of teeps and would just clinch up with Petrosyan when he was close enough, and it worked.
Why were the kicks so problematic?
Superbon was able to land these kicks essentially whenever he wanted to during this fight, against one of the best kickboxers in the world. If you ever watched him training, it’s clear that is kick dexterity is otherworldly and Petrosyan simply couldn’t see that last kick coming.
But is there a specific reason why these kicks worked against Petrosyan out of all people? Maybe.
Petrosyan intentionally utilizes a very narrow stance, which is important to his fighting style but it my have some drawbacks that resulted in this loss. While utilizing a narrow stance, in and out movement becomes more difficult, as well as leaning back. When kicks were being thrown at him, he didn’t really have the ability to just move out of the way or lean back like most other fighters would be able to.
In his stance, he is noticeably more reliant on checking with his lead leg rather than his rear. This is perfectly fine for leg kicks, but it does make it more difficult to specifically defend the open side from head kicks.
That’s just my two cents.
Overall, this was a great fight and the future for Superbon is exciting. Petrosyan has recovered from that scary knockout and has a fight set for April.