Mikey Musumeci apparently has a fair bit of Muay Thai experience in his youth and he’s now going to re-learn the sport, eventually seeing if he wants to do MMA as well. He’s currently signed with one of the world’s biggest MMA promotions in ONE Championship, and is their reigning flyweight submission grappling world champion as well. His most recent performance was a defence of this title against Combat Sambo world champion Gantamur Bayanduuren, which he won by decision in incredibly convincing fashion.
Musumeci might not have got the submission win during his match, but he was relentlessly attacking Bayanduuren’s legs and caused four different severe injuries to his opponent in the process. Everyone watching was genuinely amazed that Bayanduuren wasn’t tapping and it was clear that he was injured immediately after the match ended. When Musumeci got out of the cage, he started giving post-fight interviews to the media in attendance and was asked about whether he was considering transitioning to MMA at some point in the future:
“I train at EVOLVE, so I have the best Muay Thai program in the world. So, I plan on learning Muay Thai in the next year or so and then seeing where my level goes. And I did Muay Thai for seven years as a kid, so I have a background in Muay Thai. I just have to learn it again, but it’s not like I haven’t done any martial arts like stand-up. So, I would just like to see how I progress over time and then I would love to see if I like to do MMA.”
He was not very certain in his answer and it’s clear that MMA isn’t on the radar for his immediate future, but it’s interesting to hear that Mikey Musumeci planning on learning Muay Thai over the next few years. He’s already one of the greatest submission grapplers on the planet so if he’s able to develop decent striking skills to go with that then he could be a very dangerous MMA fighter indeed.
The full interview with Mikey Musumeci where he discusses re-learning Muay Thai and the potential of a transition to MMA was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of The MMA Superfan:
