“The Queen” Phetjeeja Lukjaoporongtom walked into The Inner Circle 19 with everything it takes to dethrone Allycia Hellen Rodrigues. The Thai sensation, however, knows exactly where the opportunity to become the organization’s next two-sport queen slipped through her fingers.
The reigning ONE women’s atomweight kickboxing world champion came up just short in her bid to claim another coveted belt in the promotion, dropping a split decision to defending women’s atomweight Muay Thai queen Allycia Hellen Rodrigues.
Their battle headlined the subscriber-exclusive card in Bangkok’s legendary Lumpinee Stadium on Friday.
The five-round war was as competitive as anything the women’s atomweight Muay Thai division has produced in years — but a quiet final round ultimately tilted the scorecards toward the Brazilian queen.
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Phetjeeja has watched the contest back and identified exactly where she lost her grip on the gold.
During a postfight interview with ONE Championship, “The Queen” walked through the moment her momentum slipped away.
“In Round 5 … man,” the Team Mehdi Zatout athlete told the promotion. “The flow of the game changed. My output dropped. I did OK at the very start of the round, but then we both slowed down.”
She added, “However, she managed to find her rhythm, started landing knees and pressed forward while I was backing away. I think that’s where I lost the advantage.”
The two-sport dream is far from over for Phetjeeja
Phetjeeja‘s brutal honesty could be the foundation of her eventual two-sport world champion run in ONE Championship.
That kind of accountability is exactly what separates great fighters from generational ones.
The Thai wasn’t having an off day or any sort of stuff like that. She did trouble the Brazilian mum-champ throughout certain stretches of their hotly anticipated all-champ clash.
Ultimately, Rodrigues was the fighter who came better prepared.
The Phuket-based warrior, teammates with two-sport ONE world champion Stella Hemetsberger, had an answer for most of the Thai’s best shots, which proved decisive on the judges’ scorecards.
But according to her quote above, Phetjeeja has owned the moment her output dropped and used it as a precise blueprint for what she needs to fix moving forward.
The two-sport status remains firmly within her grasp. The Thai sensation has the rest of her career to make it happen.
Edited by Joseph Schiefelbein