Nong-O Hama beat Rodtang Jitmuangnon by unanimous decision on Friday, Nov. 13, at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. The win sends the 40-year-old into the semifinals of the 2026-2027 ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Grand Prix. The quarterfinal headlined The Inner Circle 38, and BJPenn.com reported that Nong-O dropped Rodtang with a high kick on his way to the scorecards. The Bangkok Post framed it the way most of Thailand will, as a veteran who heard every doubt about his age and answered it on the biggest Muay Thai stage in the country.
On paper it was a ranked upset. BJPenn.com listed Rodtang second in the flyweight Muay Thai rankings and Nong-O third going in. The two former champions came in with 542 career wins between them, and the fight had been a year in the making. They were booked for the vacant flyweight belt at ONE 173 in November 2025, but that bout collapsed. Combat Press reported that Rodtang fell ill after making weight. Nong-O later explained to BJPenn.com that he had also failed his hydration test that week, while Rodtang came down with muscle cramps. This time both men cleared weight and hydration on Thursday, which is a lower bar than it should be in this sport, and still worth applauding.
Rodtang arrived at this fight coming off the worst result of his ONE career. Takeru Segawa stopped him in the fifth round of their April kickboxing rematch, the first stoppage loss Rodtang had suffered in the promotion. Friday was his return to Muay Thai rules, and he now drops two straight.
Nong-O’s year has gone the other direction. Asadula Imangazaliev knocked him out in a flyweight title fight in March, and plenty of people wrote the obituary right there. He came back in June and beat Kongthoranee Sor Sommai in their third meeting, then turned 40 just days before Friday’s bout. In the buildup he told BJPenn.com he expected the younger man to press him early and promised not to retreat: “I’m fully prepared to bang with him.” He also said he’d have to solve Rodtang step by step and adjust as the fight went along, which is exactly what a 40-year-old should be saying and almost nobody actually does.
Next up is Shimon Yoshinari, who won the other quarterfinal earlier on the night by unanimous decision over Ramadan Ondash on the ONE Friday Fights 178 broadcast. Yoshinari, a former WBC Muay Thai world champion, entered unbeaten in seven ONE appearances. Both he and Ondash had already beaten Johan Ghazali to get into this bracket.
My take: I’m giving Nong-O real credit here, because putting Rodtang down is hard and outpointing him over a full fight is harder. He rarely needs to match an opponent’s volume, and that patience beat the Iron Man’s pace on Friday. I still lean Yoshinari in the semifinal. The March knockout against Imangazaliev showed that Nong-O’s defense can crack against a fresh, unbeaten opponent who doesn’t need to rush. Rodtang, meanwhile, needs a long look at what he wants the next two years to be, because 0-2 since April is not a slump you fix with another kickboxing superfight.
