Tyrone Spong Youtube Videos
Tyrone Spong Bio
Tyrone "King of The Ring" Spong (born September 3, 1985) is a Dutch-Surinamese kickboxer. He is the reigning WFCA Cruiserweight Muay Thai and the former It's Showtime 95MAX World champion, fighting out of Fighting Factory Carbin in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
As of May 2011, Spong is ranked the #7 heavyweight in the world by LiverKick.com.
Career
Tyrone Spong was born in Suriname. In 1990 at the age of 5, he moved to the Netherlands with his family.
In 2003, his first year as a pro, he made his mark winning 12 fights a year. In 2004, he fought against Rafi Zouheir at the Battle of Zaandam and won his first European Muay Thai Title (WKN). In 2004 Spong also visited Japan to compete in Shootboxing where he lost to Ryuji Goto. Goto suplexed him in the final seconds of the fight to earn a well-received unanimous decision. His next fight in April 2005, was against Belgian Mohammed Ouali for another European Title (WPKL). Spong won the fight by unanimous decision.
In December, 2005 at the A-1 Combat Cup in Duisburg, after three consecutive KO's in one night, Tyrone Spong won his first tournament Championship.
In 2006 Spong had two his biggest victories of his young career, KO wins over Muay Thai veteran Joerie Mes and two weeks later knocking out K-1 superstar Kaoklai Kaennorsing from Thailand in a first round.
On March 28, 2009, Spong participated in the first ever K-1 Heavyweight (-100 kg) Title tournament, held in Yokohama, Japan. He was beaten by Gokhan Saki in semifinals by right hook KO of the extra round.
Spong finally met rival Nathan Corbett at Champions of Champions II in what was widely considered a battle between the two best Muay Thai fighters in the world at their weight class for the W.M.C. world title -93 kg. The fight was a close affair with Spong knocking Corbett down on the second round only for it to end with a controversial decision. In the third round Corbett managed to knock Spong out with a huge right hook causing the referee to stop the fight. However, due to the referee's misleading hand signals, Corbett rushed back in to knock Spong down once more, not sure that the fight had been stopped. After considerable confusion the fight was declared a no contest instead of a Corbett KO win.
After defeating the Worlds heavyweight champion, Kyotaro he fought Jerome Le Banner in April 2010. Similar to the Nathan Corbett fight Spong broke his right hand in the first round and was knocked down. Despite coming back strongly he lost by decision. At the end of the year he qualified for the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 Final, defeating veteran Ray Sefo in an elimination match, only to lose to eventual winner Alistair Overeem at the quarter final stage in what was a more competitive fight than most initial thought - as Overeem was much the bigger fighter. At the start of 2011, Spong had to vacate the It's Showtime 95MAX world title due to a number of issues such as not having had a title defense in the allocated two years and his management stating that he had moved up in weight to fight as a heavyweight.
Titles
- 2008 1st It's Showtime World 95MAX champion (Defense: 0)
- 2008 W.F.C.A. Thaiboxing World Cruiserweight champion (Defense: 1)
- 2008 KO World Series '08 Oceania winner
- 2007 1st SLAMM Events 79 kg class champion (Defense: 0)
- 2005 A1 World League winner
- 2005 W.P.K.L. European Middleweight champion (Defense: 0)
- 2004 W.K.N. Thaiboxing European Middleweight champion (Defense: 0)
- M.T.B.N. Muay Thai Dutch Junior class -66 kg class champion (Defense: 0)
Personal life
Spong is married with three children. He is an avid lover of animals, as is evidenced by the majority of his tattoos. He is the owner of several pit bull terriers, which he bred himself. Spong has trained in America with Floyd Mayweather Sr. He is friends with mixed martial artists Rashad Evans and Mo Lawal. He has helped both of them prepare for some of their fights. Spong trains his physical conditioning at the legendary ReAT Sports athletic performance facility in Amsterdam, under the world renowned Strength & Conditioning specialist Rayen Bindraban.
