Yothin: The Crown Slips

Yothin FA Group has been Rajadamnern stadium’s featherweight champion since 2024, and a star for them. He is called The King of Knees but in recent years he has done far more effective work with his elbows and his simple but effective kicking set-ups. We examined Yothin at length in Yothin: Kicking into Elbows, and our film study Yothin: The Elbow Goblin.

Over the weekend, Yothin returned from a lengthy lay-off to take on interim champion, Chiabkard. Chiabkard had not sizzled off the screen in the footage this writer had seen of him (though he had a good fight with Ronnachai in his last outing) and he was a reasonable underdog. When the scorecards were read, Chiabkard had pulled off the upset and unseated one of the slickest and nastiest fighters in Muay Thai.

Defusing the Yothin Shift

The crux of Yothin’s outside game is establishing the calf kick. These accrue damage quickly, and force the check from the opponent.

When the check is forthcoming, Yothin can hip feint and instead step through into a southpaw stance and lunge in with an elbow, entering the clinch and continuing with his brilliant knees.

In our previous examination of Yothin we also discussed how Yothin can use a hip feint to half turn his body and complete the motion with a legitimate kick as the opponent’s check comes down.  It is a smooth and replicable method to land flush, well-scoring kicks.

Chiabkard recognized that the threat of the calf kick was a key factor in Yothin setting up his more damaging sequences and bridging the distance. Chiabkard got to work retracting his leg from the low kick, and throwing out calf kicks of his own.

When Yothin began his step-through sequences off the threat of the calf kick, Chiabkard used a couple of different methods to prevent him. When Chiabkard picked his lead leg up, it was not turned out to check the calf kick, but used to wedge in a knee and shin block on Yothin’s body, preventing him from getting close enough to land his often fight-changing left elbow.

Another method was using the arms to physically frame on Yothin as the champion tried to step through. Just as the shin wedge was performed at the expense of being able to check the calf kick, Chiabkard’s arm frames were applied with the risk that he might misread Yothin’s step falling short and serving only to set up a body kick. In both cases, Chiabkard prioritized the jamming of Yothin’s entry to clinch range, where he is at his most dangerous.

As the fight progressed, Chiabkard was able to force Yothin onto the back foot and make stronger reads on Yothin’s shift. The right straight to the body was a keystone of Chiabkard’s offence: it tired Yothin, it broke off his attacks, it jammed him closing the distance on his shifting elbow, and it served to launch into combination punching along the ropes later on.

Framing on Yothin to prevent him closing with his elbow did not prevent Yothin from performing his hip feint, pause, body kick. The right straight to the body slotted in nicely to counter this.

These were small adjustments Chiabkard made to combat the tricks that Yothin regularly uses, but they served to put Chiabkard into the kind of fight in which he excels. Just as against Ronnachai, Chiabkard pushed forward and crashed himself against Yothin time and again, breaking only when the referee stepped between them. The moment the referee stepped aside, Chiabkard was back on Yothin. Generally, this constant aggression works because when you are pushing forward and punching the opponent, it is hard for them to do the same to you. In the context of fighting Yothin there are some deeper implications.

Yothin has made his name as a Muay Khao and Muay Sok—a master of knees and elbows. He is accepted to be very dangerous in tight, but he must fight against modern referees limiting clinch time, and opponents rightly trying to keep him on the outside. This is how Yothin developed the sneaky sequence of attacks that branch off his calf kick. He forces the opponent to check from kicking range, and uses that pause in their ability to move in order to rush through to the inside.

His issue in this fight, once he was placed on the back foot and pushed to the ropes, was the opposite. Yothin’s charge to the clinch requires space to trick the opponent into checking, and to shift through. It is hard to shift forward on an opponent when you are constantly being pushed back. It is hard to calf kick when the man can force feed you a right hand before you can get your weight into it. And while Chiabkard’s hands are not pretty, even pumping straights from the chest was enough to keep Yothin back and stifle the elbows.

When Yothin tried to calf kick his way off the ropes, Chiabkard would often retract his lead leg and return with the right straight to the body. The right straight to the body created the opportunity to follow with Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots flurries of punches.

In spite of Chiabkard fighting a brilliant match, Yothin will be the focus of speculation until a rematch can settle it. Yothin tired very quickly within this bout, and that made it easier for Chiabkard to force him onto the back foot and beat him on volume. Yothin was out of the ring for almost a full year before this fight, something he has never done before, so the question of ring rust cannot be escaped. With that being said, Yothin did not get tired beating Chiabkard up. He got tired when Chiabkard pushed him back, stifled his offence, and hit his body.

In round five, Yothin was able to summon the heart of a champion and walk Chiabkard down. Chiabkard spent the entirety of the last round circling, running, and killing time. It was not popular with the fans, but it also showed that when Yothin was on the front foot, he was still extremely dangerous. The lunging elbows and clinch entries were working when Yothin wasn’t being physically pushed backwards and hit in the body.

Yothin has a unique array of tricks, and uses them to land fight-changing single strikes, so he was always going to be a darling for analysts. Chiabkard is more for the romantic fight fan. He wins fights on heart and determination and seldom looks pretty doing it. Yet even within his rougher style there are stand-out techniques: the right straight to the body as both a lead, a counter, and an iron bar to prevent the opponent closing the distance, is priceless.

And this fight serves as a stark reminder to those of us who study a great deal of MMA that shifting only works if the opponent gives you space to shift into. In mixed martial arts everyone is still running backwards as their first line of defense, but the moment you crowd an avid shifter, they are forced to try to push through you. Shifting towards an immovable object is just bringing your feet together in the middle of a fist fight.