“It was the lights,” Kev Hemmorlor says, staring intently at the floor. “The lights and the stage. I’ve never seen that many people.”
The 1:56 minute video of his strawweight Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight at ONE Championship’s Bangkok event on May 27 is brutal to watch. Within 15 seconds, Thai opponent Kritsada “Dream Man” Konsrichai had his heel next to Hemmorlor’s cheek, narrowly missing his face but visibly affecting the wide-eyed fighter.
After battling his way back up to his feet following a vicious takedown, Hemmorlor is again plowed into the floor before being mounted. What follows is a minute-long, utterly cringe-worthy series of sharp elbows, with most crashing directly into his face. Referee Oliver Coste leapt into the fray moments after Hemmorlor released a terrifying yell of pain. He tapped the floor. The fight was over.
As medics rushed over to the now tossing-and-turning Hemmorlor, Konsrichai gleefully circled the ring pointing to the sharp end of his elbow.
Kritsada Konsrichai (top) delivers a crushing elbow to Kev Hemmorlor at ONE: Kingdom of Champions in Bangkok on May 27.
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“He can’t move too much,” his manager and promoter Benoit Rigallaud warns me the next week. “He has three broken bones at the base of his nose.”
It was hard not to stare at the small bandages above and below both eyes. Hemmorlor had the look in his eyes you would expect from a man who just lost a crucial fight: peace tinted with anger, calm tempered by a ferocious desire to get another shot.
“I just keep thinking about it,” he says. “He was not bigger or stronger, or faster, or a better fighter. But I was overwhelmed by the stage.”
When I ask him what the loss was like, a wry smile breaks the serenity blanketing his face.
“I remember. He was huge,” the 28-year-old Takeo province native says with a laugh. “He was big and tough. I had never seen any man like him before. It was my second fight. I won my first.”
It was a Yutakhun Khom, or Bokator, fight that he remembers vividly. He was 22 and coming off his first win in his first match. He had been training for years at that point after graduating from grade 12. He wanted to go to college, but needed to help support his 11 siblings, so he made his way to Phnom Penh for construction work.
But fighting had always been his passion.
“I used to watch Bruce Lee movies and Mohammed Ali fights. Pacquiao too. I always just wanted to be majestic like them,” he says.
He first started fighting in high school at age 15, but his mother was vehemently against it. His father was more supportive, and once he graduated from high school, both agreed that he should try to fight professionally. Out of his 11 siblings, he is the only athlete and fighter.
In between construction work in Phnom Penh, he trained furiously, running laps in Takeo while polishing his skills in the Khmer fighting style of Yuthakun Khom, the martial art that underpins Kun Khmer. Kun Khmer, also known as Pradal Serey, focuses on the use of the body’s sharp edges – knees and elbows – and overwhelmingly powerful kicks generated from hip rotation as opposed to the usual leg snapping.
By 2012, he was more certain than ever that he had enough skill to become a professional fighter. He committed to training full time, studying under the tutelage of Yuthakun Khom grand master Chan Bunthoeun, the father of Kun Khmer legend and MMA fighter Chan Rothana. Rothana is now the head coach at Selapak Gym in Phnom Penh, where Hemmorlor trains.
“I met Kev when I met Rothana in 2012 while they were training in Takhmao,” Rigallaud said. “I didn’t know anything about him, but I thought there was something about him, his fighting condition was good.”
“And I trusted Rothana. He is the experienced one. When he says ‘that guy can fight’, he can fight,” he adds.
Hemmorlor began to rack up wins in Yuthakun Khom fight leagues, eventually hardening his bones and resolve in the smoky, oppressively humid Kun Khmer rings.
He was able to fight his way through the scrappy Kun Khmer matches, where the glory of wins is the only thing making the $25-$100 dollars per match worth it. Through sheer will and an ever-improving fight technique, he secured enough wins to cement his belief that he was ready to try his hand at MMA.
One of Hemmorlor’s greatest assets – the relative peace you can see behind his eyes – was what led Rigallaud to believe he was ready for the big stage.
“The management of the pressure of Fight Day,” Rigallaud says, when asked why he thought Hemmorlor was ready. “We’ve seen Kev destabilize opponents in small events in the past. With his potential and experience, he should be great.”
He lost his first MMA fight at Full Metal Dojo 7: Full Metal Massacre in Bangkok last October. His opponent, Filipino Jhaymie Gayman, put him in a rear naked choke after battling for most of the first round. Despite the loss, his strong showing propelled him into his next MMA match and solidified his belief in his ability to hang with the big boys.
Kev Hemmorlor has three broken bones in his nose and still shows a black eye from his recent loss. (Photo: Fabien Mouret)
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It was 6:30 pm at Impact Arena in Bangkok, and the serenity behind Hemmorlor’s eyes was replaced by excitement, and fear.
“To be a successful athlete in any sport, you have to have a combination of three things: the physical, the technical and the mental capability,” Rigallaud says. “I am convinced he has the first two, and we need to find a way to help him with the third. He just needs to empty his head.”
Fear is often the last thing any fighter will admit to having, both to convince others of their own invincibility and to convince themselves. Yet Hemmorlor was open about the emotions coursing through every vein in his body before his last fight.
“I was scared, yes. 12,000 people were watching me on that big stage,” he says. It was a long, long way from the Kun Khmer rings where he had staked his claim. Those 24,000 eyes were accompanied by two Thai feet and fists aiming for his face within seconds of the opening bell.
Rothana was in Hemmorlor’s corner during the fight, and said the loss was just the first step for Hemmorlor.
“The Thai guy did a great job and was impressive. A loss is nothing if you learn from it, and Kev will do that,” Rothana says. “I lost fights in my career; it hurts and touches our ego for some hours or days, but if you have a new project, the pain does not last long.”
Because of his injuries, Hemmorlor will have to sit out of MMA matches for six months. But as each day passes, he becomes more and more eager to redeem himself, believing his 0-2 record in MMA fights does not represent the kind of fighter he is, and can be.
“I think about him and the fight when I sleep,” Hemmorlor says fittingly, considering his opponent’s ‘Dream Man’ moniker. “I dream about it. I know I could have beaten him. I know I can still beat him.”