Stamp Fairtex out of June fight return with ONE Championship due to knee injury: ‘80% of her meniscus was torn off’
ONE Championship atomweight champion Stamp Fairtex has been forced out of her upcoming fight in June due to a knee injury.
Stamp Fairtex was set to face Denice Zamboanga on June 7, and she was also scheduled to fight strawweight champion Xiong Jingnan on Sept. 6 in Denver, Colorado in a potential champ vs. champ fight. But, due to the injury, those fights are now off which is disappointing news for Chatri Sityodtong.
“It’s a sad thing. One of her final sparring sessions prepping for the big event in a couple of weeks, she blew out her knee. 80 percent of her meniscus was torn off her knee, and it was on a nasty takedown where her leg got caught. Her knee buckled. She just went for surgery, very successful surgery [on Sunday].”
Sityodtong said to MMAFighting
Stamp Fairtex Recovery Hopes
Sityodtong says there is no timeframe for Stamp Fairtex to return, but the hope is to return in six months, but ONE’s CEO isn’t going to rush Stamp.
“I’ve talked to the Fairtex team, looks like it’s going to be six months but I really don’t know,” Sityodtong said. “I haven’t talked to the doctor. Let’s see what happens. It’s kind of sad but at the same time Atlanta is six months away so who knows. Stamp is a super athlete. You never know.”
Chatri
Stamp Fairtex was coming off a TKO win over Ham Seo-hee in September to win the vacant atomweight champion. Fairtex is 11-2 in MMA and holds notable wins over Alyona Rassohyna, Ritu Phogat, and Alsye Anderson among others.
Chatri Sityodtong says Denver card will be ‘stacked’
ONE Championship will be returning to the United States in Denver, Colorado on September 6 and Atlanta, Georgia on November 8.
Despite losing Stamp Fairtex, Sityodtong says the Denver card will still be stacked as he’s confident it will be a stellar card for MMA fans, that will be a sellout.
“These things happen,” Sityodtong said. “The most important thing right now is for Stamp to rest and recover and rehab her knee so she’s back and hopefully she’s back in several months even potentially for our Atlanta show and there’s more shows in the states for next year. So I’m pretty relaxed about that from a timing perspective and plus we have such a stacked card.
“We haven’t even announced our card, but we have such a stacked card for Denver, 100 percent the event is going to sell out. With zero marketing, we’re more than half sold out, which is mind bogging to me. It’s a 20,000-seat arena where the world champion Denver Nuggets play. It’s a full blown NBA stadium. We’ve done zero marketing, All we’ve done is announce that we’re coming and put a ticket link up and a couple of fights and it’s more than half sold out already. So I think four months to go, we’ll probably sell out with several weeks to go just like we did for our last Denver event. We’re very excited.”
ONE Championship made its US debut last year.
