Andre “The Asian Sensation” Soukhamthath (9-3) Focused on Securing Vacant Bantamweight Title at CES XXXIII

Andre “The Asian Sensation” Soukhamthath (9-3) returns to the cage on Friday, March 11th, 2016 in the headlining championship event for CES XXXIII: Soukhamthath vs. Nordby at Twin Rivers Casino in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

An extremely popular local fighter currently training at the famed Blackzilians camp in South Florida, Soukhamthath will face fellow Rhode Island native Kody “The Rookie” Nordby (6-3) for the vacant CES Bantamweight title as the headline fight at CES XXXIII.

After opening up his amateur career as 1-2 – including a Unanimous Decision loss to current UFC Bantamweight prospect Rob Font (12-2) – Soukhamthath then lost his professional debut: a Majority Decision to Robbie Slade (4-0) at Cage Titans 6: United in September 2011.

Undeterred, Soukhamthath then made his CES debut in February 2012 and earned his first of seven consecutive victories under the Rhode Island-based company with a 2nd-Round Submission victory over Gilvan Santos (0-6) at CES: Extreme Measures.

In January 2014, Soukhamthath lost for the second time in his professional career: a Unanimous Decision defeat against current Bellator Featherweight Kin “Kong” Moy (8-2) at CES XXI.

Soukhamthath went 2-1 in his next three fights, including his most recent victory: a 2nd-Round TKO against Carlos “Tailandes” Galindo (10-4-2) at CES XXXI in October 2015.

In Nordby, Soukhamthath will face a home-state state rival for the championship they both require in order to advance their careers to the next level. With his three losses coming solely via Decision, Soukhamthath will look to display his varied striking game while not giving ground to the elite wrestling of Nordby.

Before finishing training camp for the biggest fight of his five-year career, Soukhamthath took the time to speak about his goals in MMA, his support system and fighting for the entire country of Laos.

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ON GOALS

When I started MMA about nine years ago, I fell in love with it; I wanted to make it my career right away. I wanted to reach the top – fight with the top dogs. And I knew one day I’d be able to.

Nowadays, everybody’s so good. Everybody’s training MMA; there’s so many athletes out of college going into MMA – especially wrestlers. I still have the same goals, but a lot of people are like, “Oh, I want to be champion of the world. I want to UFC world champion.”

Me: I’m simple with it. I look at it as a business, because I’m also a working man. I want to be Top 10 in the world one day in my weight class – that’s my ultimate goal right now.

I’d like to be known as Top 10 in the world one day.

Fighting can pay off my house and some of my debts – let me live a good life. I don’t need to be a millionaire right now, but it can help me live a comfortable life. I think I’ll be OK with that. I don’t need a UFC belt – I’m not thinking about anything like that right now.

I want to be Top 10 in the world, and I want to make enough money to live a comfortable life from fighting.

ON RETURNING TO FIGHT IN RHODE ISLAND

I’m just so used to it; it doesn’t really mean much to me. I’m glad that I can go back and fight for my fans. I really believe that I’m done with the local scene – so my true, organic fans that have started with me since the beginning: a lot of them aren’t going to get to see me fight live anymore.

I really believe that my time fighting local is coming to an end.

ON LINEAGE OF FIGHTING

My Dad’s always been a martial artist. He’s a real hardcore guy: he was raised in refugee camps where all he did was train; all he did was train martial arts. Competed a little bit.

His father – my grandfather – was a pretty well-known Muay Thai fighter at that time. My family on my Dad’s side: they’re fighters, but they’re not really too well known. They don’t really have a history in it, but it’s in the blood.

You can see it in my boys, you can see it in my brothers, you can see it in my uncles and my father – we have the biggest heart. We don’t give up: if we have passion for something, we persue it to the fullest. We’re tough as nails – it doesn’t matter how many punches we take, we keep on coming forward.

We’re just natural fighters; not just being a fighter, but in life.

We’re just fighters. We fight for everything that we have. We never back down from a challenge.

ON LEARNING FROM LOSSES

Of course a loss in a fight is always hard; I’m not used to it because I don’t lose much. But when I do lose, I’m not going to lie: it hits me hard. It’s really depressing sometimes. But it’s my job not to lose.

I think the only reason that I was so depressed from my losses was because I know that I was the better fighter than the guy that I fought; better than the guy that beat me that night.

I know that the only person that actually lost that fight was myself, because I beat myself.

I beat myself even before going into those fights mentally. I don’t think that’s going to happen anymore, because I’m so much more mentally stronger. I invest so much time into training – then I go off to work. And then I don’t get home until eight o’clock every day and see my kids and see my girl.

So I got to make sure all the time I use to prepare for this one night is all worth it. I can’t mess that up anymore. If someone’s going to beat me, they’ve got to really be better than me now.

ON LEGACY

As a father, I really think that I want to leave a legacy. Not just for my name, not just for my sons, but say I make it to the UFC or something: I would be the first person ever from the Laotian background – from Laos – making it big anywhere, really. You don’t see many professional Laos athletes – we’re not even in the Olympics.

So if I get signed to the UFC or something, that would be huge – not just for my family, but for my people; my homeland where my people are from.

It’s crazy: I have a chance at making history here.

ON WRESTLING

I’ve never wrestled in high school or college. Even though I’ve never wrestled, I’ve surrounded myself with good wrestlers. Even before I moved to the Blackzilians: in Rhode Island, I always surrounded myself with good wrestlers; great wrestlers.

And now that I’ve been down here at the Blackzilians for almost three years, there’s nothing but Division I wrestlers here. Nothing but top-of-the-line coaches. I’m working with my wrestling coach now: Greg Jones, and he has so much history – so many achievements – in college wrestling. And I work with that guy every day. I work with Division I wrestlers every single day.

I feel like I’ve wrestled for a good six-seven years that I know enough of it and I use it well. Whether to take people down or whether to defend takedowns – I think I’m a pretty good wrestler myself. And I’m just as good as anyone who went to college.

ON BOXING

I would love to stand and trade, but I know you can never get comfortable there. Because I know everybody I fight, they’re going to be looking for the takedown. So I got to already re-adjust my mind; I can stand and slowly get comfortable, but to get comfortable right away on my feet? It’s just not going to happen, because that’s when someone shoots in for a takedown.

That’s everybody’s game plan against me. Because they say they want to stand up with me, but then I jab once to the face and they just don’t like it.

 

I really believe that I’ve got some of the best hands in the 135-pound division. Not only in CES – but in the world.

 

You can compare me with UFC guys, the Bellator guys: if you throw me in a boxing fight against any of these ’35’er’s, I think I would beat every single one of them. If it’s just hands, I think I’d be right up there. That’s how much I believe in my hands; that’s how much I believe in my boxing.

THANK YOU

I want to thank all my supporters, my fans from Day One. All my new fans, all my soon-to-be fans. There’s nothing wrong with jumping on the bandwagon; I think if you want to jump on a bandwagon, jump on mine. Because I feel like I’m really about to blow up, and I always try to stay positive.

I want to thank my family, my girl. She’s been there from Day One managing me and is the mother of my kids; she’s just a great person in my life.

All my sponsors for my fight: 27 North Paddles; Green Arrow Marketing Media – which I have a part in; I own part of the company. And Grieco Auto Motor Group.

Those are my sponsors right now. And anybody who’s ever sponsored me before: you guys didn’t have to. You guys know who you are; thank you so much.