MUAY THAI: YOUNG LANDS FIGHT ENDING ELBOW AT MECCA XII

Driller Promotions continued to showcase Minnesota’s growing and talented Muay Thai scene on Saturday night at the Canterbury Park Expo Center in Shakopee, MN. The intense action thrilled another full and supportive crowd.

In the featured professional fight of the night, Light Welterweight World Champion Kaitlin Young (12-1) of the Academy used a brutal right elbow in the first round to tear open a cut over and into Martyna Krol’s left eyebrow. The cut was so bad that it left doctor Gene Stringer with no other option but to stop the fight. Despite being able to see all kinds of gruesomeness including skull, muscle, and lots of blood, Krol (30-15) of Bangkok Boxing pleaded with the doctor and those involved to let the fight continue. “We worked too hard for this” the tough Polish-born fighter explained. Young told Minnesota Fight News after weighing in the night before that her weight cut went perfectly. It showed on fight night as Young looked solid and her strikes cracked her opponent with conviction as soon as the bell rang to kick-off the fight. Krol remained calm despite the aggression from Young. The fight didn’t last long enough to determine what might have happened if the action were allowed to continue. But Krol, who had moved up to 140 pounds for the first time, was dead set on returning fire, which made the stoppage unfortunate.

Discussions by both sides and the promoter started after the fight so look for these two fighters to meet again soon for round 2.

“I don’t remember which elbow it was, I’ll have to watch the replay” said Young afterwards. “Kronphet said he thought it was the up elbow. Initially I wanted them to let the fight go. We had brought in a cut guy for the first time for this show, so I was hoping that he’d at least have a chance to work on it and buy more ring time. I think I advocated for the fight to continue more than Krol did. Upon seeing the close up and speaking with the medical staff, it was not the bleeding that was the primary concern. It was down to the skull and split several ways so the fear was that it may continue to split further into her actual eye if it was continually hit. It made more sense to me after their explanation.
I’d be happy to rematch her if she wants to set it up but there are no formal plans. We drilled that exact scenario twice a day for the whole camp, so it being referred to as a “lucky strike” is inaccurate. We knew that elbow would be there. This fight went exactly as planned, it just ended earlier than we would have liked.”

“It was just round one so there is not much to say about how the fight was going since we didn’t really get the chance to really fight further into the rounds” said Krol when asked to talk about the fight. “In the first round, I was just trying to feel her out. I believe it was the right elbow. I was and still am disappointing that the fight finished like that. I saw a cut and it was a big one. The doctor said he had to stop the fight because it was just round one and if I had taken a few more hits to the wound there would have been a chance it would have spread to my eye. He said that would be at least a year off if that happened. So I don’t know. I take his word for it since I am not a doctor (laughing). It is just disappointing because we trained really hard for this one and we didn’t even really have time to fight more. At the beginning I thought it was lucky that Kailin cut me but thinking about it more, I think it was their goal from the beginning and I made the mistake of just being not aggressive enough from the first round. I indeed spoke with the promoter and Kaitlin and they said they are both down to rematch. I have no details yet or anything like that. I just hope it happens! I would like to congratulate Kaitlin on the win. Hopefully we will meet again to fight soon. Thanks for having me!”