Ramadan Ondash calls it a friendship. His opponent calls it something else entirely.
Johan Ghazali meets Ondash in a flyweight Muay Thai co-main event at The Inner Circle 24 this Friday, July 31, inside Bangkok’s Lumpinee Stadium.
The matchup traces back to this past May, when Ondash called Ghazali out moments after beating Suriyanlek Por Yenying in his flyweight debut. Ondash framed the request using words like brotherhood and mutual respect, and Ghazali accepted the fight without hesitation.
“After he called me out, I was like, ‘Okay, I thought, you want to be all brave and call me out,’ which is fine. But don’t say we’re friends or any of that bullsh*t. Like, yeah, I know him. I would say we are friends at arm’s length. That’s what it is. We’re not close friends. We used to fight in the same tournaments all the time. But we never really hung out. We did talk whenever we met, but I never thought of him as a super close friend,” Ghazali said.
“He knows this fight will be the biggest one yet for him. He has to get past me. I’m ready for a fighter of his style and his caliber. I love this type of brawl-style fight. This is always my bread and butter. I see Ramadan as a version of myself from two to three years ago in terms of an experience standpoint. I have the experience now, and I’m a little more mature than him heading into this fight.”
Johan Ghazali questions Ramadan Ondash’s maturity
Johan Ghazali has studied how Ondash handles adversity, pointing specifically to his lone promotional loss this past December. That defeat came against newly crowned ONE Interim Strawweight Muay Thai World Champion Aliff Sor Dechapan.
Coming from a fellow 19-year-old, the assessment carries real weight heading into fight week.
“Ramadan fights very emotionally, and you can see in some fights that his confidence fades after he doesn’t get what he wants. We all saw that against Aliff. Those clips tell a lot about his character and the person he is. For me, if I lose, I take it on the chin. I don’t go around giving f**king excuses, saying people are running. But he clearly lost. He’s not experienced enough or mature enough to be able to accept it,” Ghazali said.
This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM
