American striking specialist Luke Lessei returns to ONE Championship action on Friday night at ONE Fight Night 23, where he’ll take on French striking ace Bampara Kouyate.
It’s a matchup that could light up a stacked card of fights at the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, as the fighter known as “The Chef” looks to cook up a storm in front of a passionate crowd.
Lessei captured his first win under the ONE banner with victory over compatriot Eddie Abasolo. Now he plans to position himself for a shot at ONE featherweight Muay Thai world champion Tawanchai PK Saenchai by picking up an attention-grabbing victory over Kouyate, who hails from Mehdi Zatout’s Pattaya-based training camp.
Ahead of fight night in Bangkok, Lessei shared his thoughts on the challenge ahead during a quickfire Q&A session.
Given your two fun fights in ONE Championship at Bangkok’s Lumpinee Boxing Stadium, do you feel like the Thai fans have warmed up to you?
Honestly, I think, just the thoughts that are through my mind when I was walking out, it’s not as easy to tell. You know what I mean? I guess I’m so focused.
I just I think I’m a regular dude. I think I’m a cool dude. I don’t think I give people a lot of reasons to hate on me when I perform. So I don’t think too much about it if they’re going to love or hate me. Just try to go out there and show my passion, show my creativity, and most people tend to enjoy that.
What excites you about fighting Bampara Kouyate?
I think just the style matchup, which what I thought was going to happen against Eddie [Abasolo] might happen. I mean, you never know what’s going to happen, but I thought me and Eddie would be a little bit more technical. So I’m hoping every flight gets a little more technical because then I can show, you know, my actual fight IQ and my skills. Not that I don’t, but in my last few fights, I’ve kind of been showing my Midwest mentality, my toughness.
Of course, there’s good stuff here and there, but this guy, Bampara Kouyate, he’s, like, 6’2”, same height as me, a Muay Femur. So he’s technical. He likes to wait, counter, set up techniques, and that’s the same as me. So I love a good chess match. And I think a slow paced fight where I’m able to think, that’s when I’m the most dangerous. So I get really excited when I fight technical fighters.
Does his size give you any concern?
So first of all, I’ve had 60 amateur fights. So I’ve fought people, all different sizes, all different. It’s definitely quite a handful of people that are the same size as me, even younger before I hit my growth spurt. So that stuff never goes away. And then, also, my dad’s 6’4”, and he’s my coach. He’s holding pads for me. So the body that I’m always looking at is 6’4”, 200 pounds.
So I’m sparring with a handful of guys that are my height, a little bit shorter, but that’s the least of my worries because if I get so caught up in this dude’s head, it’s just a little bit higher than the last dudes I fought. Like, that’s just the smallest adjustment, and those adjustments are easy for me.
What are Bampara’s strengths?
He seems like he has pretty good eyes, like, with his range and being able to make guys miss their low kicks and miss their high kicks. But I think that just comes with it being tall. You’re able to go in and out super easy without moving a whole lot.
So it’s like all of his strengths, I have the same exact moves, the same, and I think that they’re better. But I just know that he’s gonna be ready to counter. He has good eyes, and he’s athletic. He’s quick. He’s got quick reactions. So it’s gonna be me on my p’s and q’s against him on his p’s and q’s. Because really, at this level, it’s, like, hard to pick out weaknesses. People are pretty much strong in every aspect of the game.
You mentioned his counter-striking. Does that lead to more or less creativity on your end?
It leads to more because of the way my brain works and the obsession that I have with creating, setting traps, being a Muay Femur where with the fight IQ. There are generic counters. There are counters that everybody does that I’ll start to counter because, you know, there’s, like, that first level where everyone counters a jab with, like, a pull cross, but then I’m going to jab to bait that cross so then I can counter your counter.
You get what I’m saying? There are generic things within each counter that when you get to the elite level, you’re countering counters. And I hate that I keep saying that, but that’s really what it is. However he reacts to me, I know, like, I’ve been in the game so long. I’m also training his reactions to my attacks See what I’m saying? So whatever his reaction to my attack would be, I also have strong eyes. So I feel like I’m always a step ahead because whatever I do, I know that there’s an opportunity to get countered. So it gives me another opportunity to come back.
What’s your prediction?
I think I’m going to go in there and show that there are absolutely levels to this creativity and this Muay Femur game that everyone’s talking about. Like, yeah, I lost against Jo [Nattawut], but all he did was box. That’s all he did. I won the elbows exchanges. I won the kick exchanges.
Then I went against Eddie, and we kind of both were evenly matched throughout the whole fight with all the combos. But this time, I think I’m going to come out there and just show that I’ve been training really hard because I want to be a superstar. I really want people to think of me when they think of American Muay Thai. So, yeah, I’m coming in hot this one. I’m coming in to show everything that I’ve been doing for the last 20 years.
