How Saenchai Fights Bigger Opponents
The Art of Fighting Giants: Saenchai's Masterclass in Psychological Warfare
he matchup seemed impossible on paper.
Adalyton Freitas was a three-time world champion—20 centimeters taller, 40 pounds heavier, and genuinely skilled. Not just big. Dangerous.
Against an opponent like this, Saenchai couldn’t fight conventionally. A head-to-head battle would favor the giant’s natural advantages.
What unfolded instead was a masterclass in how skill transcends size.
Round One: The Turning Point
For much of the opening round, Saenchai struggled.
Size was winning. Freitas landed effectively, controlled distance, and seemed poised to impose his will.
Then came the turning point—not a knockout blow, but something far more devastating.
The Setup
As Saenchai executed his signature cartwheel kick, Freitas countered intelligently, sweeping the leg mid-recovery. Textbook technique: exploit the vulnerability, destabilize the flashy opponent. Saenchai nearly fell.
By any objective measure, Freitas had done nothing wrong. He’d executed a perfectly legal, tactically sound counter.
But watch what happens next.
The Performance
The referee hadn’t intervened. The exchange was clean. Yet Freitas immediately backed away, and Saenchai—reading the room with predatory precision—seized the ambiguity.
He dropped his hands. His face twisted in theatrical indignation. The performance was flawless.
And Freitas bowed.
This is where the fight was truly won.
In that deep, apologetic bow lies the entire psychology of dominance. Freitas, despite doing nothing wrong, had acknowledged fault. He’d bent the knee. The momentum he’d been building evaporated instantly.
Saenchai had transmuted a near-stumble into a coronation.
Sun Tzu wrote that “all warfare is based on deception.” Saenchai’s feigned anger wasn’t rage—it was strategy. By pulling his opponent out of rhythm and into a mental framework where he was the aggressor who’d transgressed, Saenchai restructured the entire fight.
The giant had proclaimed him king without realizing it.
The Payoff
The technical dominance followed naturally:
A sweeping kick—Saenchai’s first clean score of the fight
A teep that sent Freitas stumbling backward
Then, from across the ring, that spectacular jumping push kick, driving the larger man to the canvas
The momentum had reversed entirely.
Knockout Technique From Saenchai:
If you want to learn from Saenchai’s “How To Fight Giants” Curriculum Click Here
Saenchai knows his punches won’t hit as hard as his bigger opponent’s. So he doesn’t try to out-muscle the giant. He out-times him.
The secret? Strike when they’re vulnerable—specifically, right after they miss.
In this fight, Saenchai found his perfect opening: when Freitas throws a knee and misses. For that split second, the giant is balanced on one leg, committed to the attack, unable to defend what comes next.
That’s when Saenchai fires the cross.
The geometry is beautiful. The distance Freitas’s knee travels forward equals exactly the distance Saenchai’s cross travels back. It’s a perfect trade—except only one lands.
Watch his footwork here. As the knee comes in, Saenchai does something called a “backward step-step”—his feet glide backward while his hands prepare to counter. He’s retreating and attacking simultaneously.
The execution is clinical:
His lead hand taps the incoming knee (parrying and measuring in one motion)
His rear hand loads
The cross fires straight down the centerline
Here’s why it works: Saenchai’s cross lands before Freitas can:
Plant his foot back down
Regain his balance
Throw his Plan B elbow (the typical follow-up to a knee)
Saenchai isn’t just countering the knee. He’s countering everything that would come after it.
He’s fighting three moves ahead while his opponent is still on move one.
This is what fighting IQ looks like—turning physical disadvantage into a timing advantage.
Round Two: The Systematic Dismantling
With Freitas now fighting uphill psychologically, Saenchai began the methodical work of exploitation.
The giant attempted to reassert himself with power shots, but his roundhouse kicks cut through empty air. Saenchai’s lean-back—refined through thousands of repetitions—had become predictive rather than reactive.
He wasn’t responding to the kick. He was already gone before it arrived.
Finding the Pattern
Pattern recognition is the hallmark of elite competition. By the second round, Saenchai had identified a structural weakness: Freitas was vulnerable to the left cross counter in specific sequences.
It’s one thing to notice a tendency. It’s another to weaponize it.
Saenchai began landing the cross with increasing frequency, forcing Freitas to adjust.
The Brief Comeback
The adjustment worked, briefly. Freitas found his range, connected with solid punches, and for a few exchanges, the fight seemed competitive again.
Lesser fighters might have panicked at this resurgence.
Saenchai simply recalibrated. Strong teeps reasserted distance. Clinch attempts were smothered before they could develop.
The message was clear: You may have moments, but I control the narrative.
The Paradox: Advancing Into Size
Then came the counter-intuitive mastery that separates the great from the transcendent.
Conventional wisdom says a smaller fighter should maintain distance from a larger opponent—use footwork and angles to avoid the reach and power differential.
Saenchai did the opposite. He walked forward.
This wasn’t recklessness. It was psychological engineering.
By pressuring Freitas, Saenchai triggered an anxiety response. The giant, now uncertain, began throwing frantically. Volume increased, but effectiveness plummeted.
When your best shots land to no visible effect, something breaks inside. The larger man begins to feel small.
And that’s when Saenchai became the bigger fighter.
Not physically, but in every way that mattered. He walked Freitas down, landed the heavier shots, and watched as his opponent’s confidence dissolved.
The physical advantages remained unchanged, but the psychological landscape had been completely redrawn.
Round Three: The Inevitable Conclusion
By the third round, Freitas was fighting Saenchai’s fight entirely.
When he threw a knee, Saenchai caught it casually on his forearm and loaded that familiar left hand—the same weapon that had been troubling Freitas since round two. As Freitas reset, another counter landed off a low kick attempt.
The pattern was unbreakable now.
The Finish
The finish was almost merciful. Saenchai backed the giant into the corner and unleashed a torrent of punches with machine-gun precision—not unlike Ip Man’s legendary chain-punching—until the referee intervened.
The Deeper Lesson
This wasn’t simply a victory of skill over size. It was a demonstration of how fighting, at its highest level, transcends the merely physical.
Saenchai understood something essential: the battle for physical space in the ring is secondary to the battle for psychological territory.
He didn’t just beat a giant. He made the giant defeat himself—through a manufactured moment of doubt, through strategic pressure that triggered defensive panic, through the systematic erosion of confidence.
The techniques were spectacular, yes. But they were deployed within a framework of psychological warfare that transformed physical disadvantage into strategic irrelevance.
In an age obsessed with measurables—reach, weight, speed, power—Saenchai’s performance reminds us that the unmeasurable qualities often matter more.
Timing over strength. Psychology over size. The mind’s dominance over the body’s limitations.
This is what mastery looks like.
If you want to learn how Saenchai dominates giants ↓
Saenchai’s How to Fight Giants Curriculum - The legendary technician reveals his complete system for beating bigger, stronger opponents through timing, psychology, and tactical intelligence
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Until next time—study the moments others overlook, find the windows your opponents don’t see, and remember: the fight isn’t won just by who hits harder. It’s won by who thinks more intelligently.
— Lawrence Kenshin
The principles Saenchai uses to dominate larger opponents aren’t genetic gifts or mystical secrets. They’re systematic frameworks built on timing, psychology, and tactical intelligence that anyone can develop.
If you want to understand how Saenchai makes fighting giants look effortless—and apply those principles to your own training—I’ve worked directly with him and Thailand’s greatest technicians to preserve their methods in systematic courses:
Learn from the legends themselves:
Saenchai’s Fighting Giants Master Course - The best Muay Thai fighter of the last three decades teaches his complete system for defeating bigger, stronger opponents
Pipa’s GOAT Muay Thai Coaching System - The greatest coach of all time (who produced Saenchai, Lerdsila, and Somrak) reveals his complete training methodology and technical frameworks
Lerdsila’s Untouchable Striking System - The most elusive fighter in history breaks down the genius-level fight IQ behind his impossible defense and effortless dominance
Rodtang’s Ruthless Knockout System - Learn the fearless aggression and championship dominance of this era’s most popular Muay Thai fighter
Sagat’s Unstoppable Knockout System - The greatest knockout artist in Muay Thai history and Street Fighter icon shares his legendary techniques
Samkor’s Unstoppable Left Kick System - The most feared left kicker of all time teaches his legendary southpaw system
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