ONE Championship’s two biggest Thai stars are headed in opposite directions on the calendar. Featherweight Muay Thai champion Tawanchai PK Saenchai could be back in competition as early as April, while two-sport champion Superlek Kiatmoo9 may need up to nine more months of recovery, according to a Bangkok Post report published Nov. 2.
The report gives a target window for Tawanchai and nothing firmer. No opponent, no event and no specific date has been attached to the April return. On the Superlek side, the phrase “nine more months” says a lot by itself. The word “more” means he is already deep into time away. Counting from early November, nine months puts a return somewhere around August 2027, assuming the full timeline is needed and nothing slips.
The nature of Superlek’s injury and the specifics of his recovery weren’t laid out in the material available to us, so I won’t guess. What we do know is how the rest of the sport currently values him.
Where Superlek sits right now
Combat Press released its November 2026 Muay Thai rankings on Nov. 1, and Superlek is still in the men’s pound-for-pound top 10. He slipped one spot, from No. 5 to No. 6. Nadaka Yoshinari holds No. 1, followed by Nico Carrillo, Asadula Imangazaliev and Regian Eersel. The fighter who jumped past Superlek was Yod-IQ PK Saenchai, who climbed from No. 7 to No. 5 and also sits at No. 1 in the Combat Press welterweight rankings.
That ranking has a shelf life. Combat Press’s editor’s note says fighters stay eligible only if they’ve competed within the last 18 months. A nine-month layoff on top of the time Superlek has already missed starts pressing against that line, depending on when his last fight was. If the recovery runs long, he could fall out of the pound-for-pound list on inactivity alone, regardless of how good he still is.
Tawanchai, for what it’s worth, doesn’t appear anywhere in this month’s Combat Press tables. That’s the outlet’s call and I’m not going to invent a reason for it, but an April fight would at least give voters something fresh to look at.
What comes next
For Tawanchai, the next step is simple. ONE either books him for April or it doesn’t, and once a matchup is announced we’ll know whether this was a real target or an optimistic one. For Superlek, the next few months are about rehab and nothing else, and any talk of a specific opponent before mid-2027 should be treated as noise.
My take is that nine months is the right kind of boring news. Fighters who rush back from long injuries tend to show up as worse versions of themselves, and Superlek at 80 percent is a waste of everybody’s ticket money. Tawanchai in April is the fun part of this report. Superlek taking his time is the smart part, and I’d rather have him healthy next summer than limping into a spring card because a promoter got antsy.
