A big day tomorrow for the daughter of a very nice bloke I know as she has her first MMA bout on home soil here in Thailand, so allow me to introduce...

Noëlle "Lil'Monkey" Grandjean

Noëlle has a foundation firmly in Judo and has been competing since she was 6 years old. She was Dutch national champion in 2018 and has also competed internationally for Thailand, due to her dual French-Thai nationality.

She is also an expert in Jui-Jitsu in which she has also competed at international level.

Noëlle has also successfully competed in Muay-Thai but has struggled for worthy opponents, as so many fighters have been shit scared steered clear of her. She has long been desperate to break into MMA and after a couple of warm-up bouts, took the GAMMA Asian title and Gold Medal for her weight at the Asian Championships in Khazakstan last October after overpowering Indian, Samata Sonavane, forcing her to tap out, just over a minute into their bout.

Fight actually starts a 4:50

You see how skilled and lightening fast she was in the takedown? No doubt her background in Judo coming into play and once her opponent was in a hold, there was no way back. Top performance.

With both her Dad and brother also being fighters, she has the pedigree and experience to go a long way in MMA taking things one step at a time. Hopefully we'll be seeing her at UFC soon!

Saturday will see her fighting on the Fairtex promotion's, 'Descendents of the Empire II' card at the historic Lumpini stadium in Bangkok against Pakistani, Anita Karim at Atom weight which is for fighters under 52.2kg

Lumpinee boxing stadium (สนามเวทีมวยลุมพินี) in Bangkok is the home of modern Muay Thai and originally opened back in 1956. It was moved and rebuilt in 2014 to a location on Ram Inthra Road (near where I live) and has a capacity of 5000 spectators.

By Mr.Sayompoo Setabhrahmana - Work created under contract with the Department of Tourism, Ministry of Tourism and Sports. Published with author's permission, CC BY-SA 4.0,

Obviously there hasn't been much action throught the whole pandemic but crowds will be allowed in on Saturday with everyone having to take an ATK test before being admitted.

There is also history being made...
This is Thailand, and it is in many ways, still a very traditional place and as such, Lumpinee never allowed female fighters to fight, there was also no other combat sports allowed there so tomorrow, thanks to a relaxation in rules by the Thai Army who control the stadium, history will be made obviously, as both females will be allowed to fight and it's a mixed card with both Muay Thai and MMA taking place!

The other good new is, its been streamed live!

If you're in Thailand, its onfree-to-air Channel 7
Live on Facebook and YouTube via Fairtex Fight Promotion

If you want to follow Noëlle, this is her official Instagram page

And for the French speakers amongst us, you can find a great interview with her here

That's it! It all starts at 10.00am Thai time which is 3.00am GMT and 4.00 UTC so tune in and watch the champion in action. Sadly I'm working tomorrow morning so can't get down to the stadium but I'll be sneakily watching on my phone ;-)

Have a great weekend ladies and gents!

Marching On Together with

Noëlle "Lil'Monkey" Grandjean

All photos and videos used are from publicly available sources, www.gamma-sport.org, www.fairtexfightpromotions.com and www.instagram.com/noelle_mma/ and as such should be fine to reproduce. If however, you see me on Monday limping and sporting a black-eye, they were not OK to use lol