Sam-A Gaiyanghadao And Aliff Sor Dechapan To Fight For ONE Interim Strawweight Muay Thai World Title At The Inner Circle On July 24
With Prajanchai PongSuphan PK temporarily sidelined through injury, ONE Championship has wasted no time in keeping the strawweight Muay Thai division moving. The interim title fight that follows does not feel like a placeholder. It feels like a genuine crossroads moment for the sport.
Sam-A Gaiyanghadao and Aliff Sor Dechapan will contest the ONE Interim Strawweight Muay Thai World Title at The Inner Circle on Friday, July 24, live in Asia primetime from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.
Sam-A needs no preamble. The 42-year-old southpaw is widely regarded as one of the greatest pound-for-pound Muay Thai strikers in the history of the sport, a fighter whose blistering left kick and suffocating defensive intelligence have frustrated elite opposition across four decades of professional competition.
The brief retirement he took a few years ago was short-lived. He returned with a point to prove and has spent every fight since proving it emphatically, most recently stopping Elmehdi “The Sniper” El Jamari with a walk-off head kick at ONE Fight Night 42 in April for his first ONE Championship knockout, earning a US$50,000 performance bonus in the process. At 42, with a title shot now secured, the argument that his championship window has closed has run out of evidence to lean on.
Aliff represents the other end of that spectrum entirely. The 22-year-old Thai-Malaysian phenom from the Sor Dechapan stable has been one of the most relentless performers in the division since his arrival, combining punishing forward pressure with heavy-handed combinations that have systematically dismantled opponents across a five-fight winning streak.
His most recent result, a unanimous decision over Ramadan Ondash at ONE Fight Night 38, cemented his position as the division’s undisputed top contender. He arrives at July 24 with the chance to make history as the first Malaysian-born ONE World Champion, carrying a hunger that no amount of respect for Sam-A’s legend can dilute.
The fighter who wins the interim title also wins a guaranteed unification bout against Prajanchai once the champion is cleared to return. The strawweight Muay Thai division’s near future will be written entirely by what happens inside Lumpinee Stadium on July 24.
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