ONE Championship 163: Ham Seo-hee cancels fight with ‘irresponsible’ Itsuki Hirata – ‘I hope she feels embarrassed’
- South Korean apologises to fans and says ‘I kept all my promises’ as Hirata fails pre-fight hydration test three times in Singapore
- ‘Everybody makes mistakes once. But if they make the same mistake twice, thrice and even more, that’s a big problem,’ Ham says
Ham Seo-hee has confirmed Saturday’s ONE Championship 163 fight with Itsuki Hirata in Singapore is off.
The two still faced off at Singapore Indoor Stadium for the event’s ceremonial weigh-ins later in the evening. However, Hirata had to return to the fighters’ hotel to try to pass hydration again, before she would be allowed to weigh in and try to negotiate a catchweight with Ham.
But 35-year-old Ham (23-8) stuck to her guns, and explained in a lengthy Instagram post in the early hours of Saturday morning why she would not take the fight.
“For the love of ONE Championship, [CEO] Chatri and all the staff, I really wanted to fight tomorrow as much as possible,” Ham wrote. “But I decided to cancel my fight. I thought about It very deeply until the very end and came up with the answer.
“So far in my ONE Championship journey, I’ve never passed hydration and weight test on my first try. It always took me several tries to pass. And I was so embarrassed about that. So this time, I really trained hard every single day, shed a lot of blood and tears and prepared so well for it. And I finally passed today on my very first try.”
“But my opponent failed both weight and hydration until the end. If I had a different opponent, I would have accepted the fight no matter what. Because I believe that everybody makes mistakes once. But if they make the same mistake twice, thrice and even more, I think that’s a big problem.