Three-time Muay Thai world champ Ekaterina Vandarieva has hit back after a scandal embroiled her loss to 'Supergirl' Jaroonsak Muaythai, sharing footage of herself letting rip on her One Championship foe with a barrage of punches.
The boss of the promotion, Chatri Sityodtong, admitted that the brutal Belarusian "easily won" the bloody scrap on Friday in Singapore, with Supergirl hospitalized after the fight and suffering a large haematoma on her forehead.
After enduring a third successive setback that was widely considered to be unjust, 30-year-old Vandarieva was frustrated when she was asked about the verdict in the immediate aftermath of the bruising contest.
“You shouldn’t be asking me,” she said, having nearly ended the showdown by pummeling a rival who became One's youngest ever competitor with a 60-second knockout as a 16-year-old on a card last year.
“You should be asking the judges. I did more hits, more kicks, and they were more accurate. I don’t know what else I have to do to win here.”
Sityodtong provided some consolation by awarding Vandarieva a $50,000 performance bonus.
“I just don’t know what the judges were seeing, what they were judging," he conceded. "She was one punch, one kick away from finishing Supergirl.
“Ekaterina easily won that fight – it was not even close. I was super impressed. I just don’t see how she lost that fight, but I’m not a judge.
"We try to work with the best judges but I know Muay Thai, and Ekaterina won that fight.”
Referee Olivier Coste looked on with concern and the cageside doctor inspected Supergirl between rounds.
“When you’re fighting, you have to get hurt,” she bravely acknowledged, later telling her fans: “I got the W last night but the performance was so bad for me.
"Due to covid and school stuff, I hadn’t fought for one year and four months until [the bout].
"It wasn’t my best performance but I did try my best at that time and keep forward for the whole fight.
"And I’m truly sorry that the results by the judges made you guys not happy with that. I fought and let the judges did their job.
"That’s out of my control. Sorry about that again. And congratulations to my opponent who won the bonus last night. You’re the best."
The pair are said to have agreed an immediate rematch. "When stamina ends, character begins," Vandarieva defiantly told her Instagram following of almost 40,000 alongside footage of herself kicking and clubbing the covering-up Supergirl.
The Minsk-based brawler knows how it feels to be a teenage starlet: Vandarieva became a world champion in 2009, just a year after she started kickboxing, and had racked up dozens of wins by the time she entered her 20s.