Stamp Fairtex suffered a torn meniscus during training, forcing him to withdraw from the ONE Championship 167 headliner.
The Singapore-based promotion said Fairtex will undergo surgery for his injury and will not defend his atomweight (115-pound) belt against Dennis Zamboanga as originally scheduled. Zamboanga is expected to remain on the fight card with an opponent yet to be announced. Fairtex was scheduled to face ONE strawweight (125-pound) queen Jingnan Xiong in Denver on September 6, but the promotion says that bout is also “questionable.”
Fairtex revealed the circumstances of his injury in a release issued by ONE Championship.
“My sparring partner was behind me and was trying to knock me down. She grabbed my body and lifted me up, but she’s smaller than me, so when she lifted me up, she couldn’t lift me that high. My feet were still touching the ground,” Fairtex said.
“Then she twisted. When she twisted, my foot was still on the ground, so my knee twisted. When I twisted, it made a loud noise. So I stopped immediately and then… I had an MRI scan.
[And the doctor said] My meniscus was torn. ”
ONE 167 will be held on June 7th at Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand. Due to Fairtex’s injury, the featherweight (155 pound) Muay Thai championship bout between Tawanchai PK Saenchai and Nattawut Somkul was promoted to the main event.
Fairtex, a former ONE titleholder in both kickboxing and Muay Thai, captured the vacant 115-pound MMA belt with a third-round TKO victory over Seo Hee-ham at ONE on Prime Video 14 in September of this year. I got. The 26-year-old from Thailand has amassed an 11-2 record while competing exclusively under the ONE banner.
