The Enduring, Immortal Regian Eersel
Photo by Williams Paul/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The great thing about writing about kickboxing in comparison to MMA is that I have very little personal attachment to the fighters I write about. It is much easier for me to do my job as an analyst objectively when I employ the philosophy of my friend and colleague Ryan Wagner: “Just enjoy what fighters do, and set the rest aside.”
It also allows me to jump in and begin enjoying fighters without any kind of prior reservations. I have written several technical breakdowns on kickboxers by this point, and my knowledge about their coaching and training situations remains sparse. Fortunately, kickboxers also provide me with quite a bit more content to work with, which means it doesn’t take long before I find myself enamored with the stylings of particular competitors. As such, discovering ONE lightweight champion, Regian Eersel, was nothing short of a lovely surprise. Here is the lowdown on the Surinamese-Dutchman’s technical game.
Drowning & Frowning
Eersel is a stalking breed of pressure fighter, where he employs sound ring-cutting with a measured array of feints and probing attacks to defuse the attacks of an opponent. When he commits, Regian is a serpentine marvel of knees and kicks that shock opponents with their speed, accuracy, and efficacy. While his propensity for flying knees and head kicks is flashy enough to attract the eyes, what lies underneath is a structure of craft and intelligence.
Regian understands a fundamental part of pressure fighting that I wish more MMA strikers would internalize: When you walk an opponent down, you are forcing them to work. If their slice of distance is collapsing, a fighter must either make the concession to move backward, angle off, or attempt to throw back. At a basic level, walking an opponent down literally means taking the fight to them. Some of Eersel’s best work comes from the third option, where he continually forces his opponent’s hand, making them commit to something in their arsenal before swamping them. An ability to push an opponent back safely, forcing them to continually react pays dividends when your weapons are reliable.
Eersel disincentivizes Holzken’s leg kicks by countering with his own, and forces Holzken to account for all planes of attack with a body-head 1-2 combination. I have discussed Holzken’s problematic wait-&-see style of defense, and Eersel takes full advantage of it here. The jab draws Nieky’s guard up and his head down. After a full beat, Regian lands a rear knee up the middle, ostensibly switching himself to southpaw. He lands a southpaw jab as Holzken is reeling a half beat after the knee.
A lot of Eersel’s best combinations come off of same-side attacks, where he plays on an opponent’s expectations before doubling up on targets with different weapons. This sort of tactic works best in tandem with a fighter capable of making specific tactical inferences based on an opponent’s reactions, and Eersel has become quite adept at exactly that. He is a uniquely quick-thinking fighter, which magnifies his innate dynamism.
Eersel counters Nattawut’s outside leg kick with an inside one, and feints a right hand behind it. Nattawut attempts to slip outside while pivoting. Regian takes note of his reaction. In the very next exchange, his opponent throws a lead leg body kick and Eersel blocks it with both arms. Simultaneously, Regian takes a lateral step with his left foot to create an angle and repeats the right handed feint to draw Nattawut’s previous defensive reaction. Eersel pivots his planted left foot outward to open up his hips for the right high kick, which he almost lands as a trailing kick across his opponent while angling off.
Regian Eersel makes great use of his frame, where his long guard can double as a tool to initiate clinch entries and his posture on the inside is usually dominant. He is one of the best strikers in the world at utilizing the clinch both proactively and reactively, pinching opponents between a threatening arsenal of kicks from range and a barrage of knees and tight hooks up close. Remember when I said that pushing opponents back forces them to work? If an opponent chooses option 3 and attempts to throw back at Eersel upon entry, they run the risk of getting smothered and bullied inside.
Regian forces Holzken backward with a jab-inside leg kick. As he retracts his lead leg, he shifts forward into southpaw before taking a small hop-step with his right leg to collapse the last bit of distance between him and Nieky. Eersel keeps his guard high as he smothers Holzken’s own high guard, but once he’s in range, he immediately grabs hold of his opponent and lands a shifting left knee to his body.
Eersel steps in past Riddell’s 1-2, wedging his left foot towards the centerline of the Australian. He counters Riddell’s right hand with a left hook to the body, and collapses the rest of the distance. In the clinch, Eersel keeps his right foot on the outside of Riddell’s left foot, works to keep the Australian’s posture broken with the weight of his right arm, and lands a same-side knee to Riddell’s midsection, dropping him.
Riddell steps in with a 1-2, before hop-stepping to a new angle with a lead uppercut, wedging his lead foot towards Eersel’s centerline. After feeling Riddell’s lead uppercut on his guard, Regian counters with a short right hook that sneaks through the inside track of Riddell’s lead shoulder, beating him to the punch. As Riddell attempts to throw back with a right hand, Eersel pivots off his leag leg, before reangling with his own 1-2. This draws Riddell’s guard up, and as the Australian attempts another left hook counter with his weight folded over his lead leg, Eersel shifts off his right hand, drawing Riddell into a left knee to the body.
It always strikes me how much of Eersel’s parenthetical output is useful in both scoring points, disincentivizing the offense of his opponents, and opening up space for meaningful attacks. It’s tempting for me to just list a bunch of highlights from Regian with a little blurb about how cool it looks, but I don’t want to mitigate how scientific and thoughtful a fighter Eersel truly is.
Eersel throws a leg kick to draw out an exchange with Riddell, who predictably looks for the left hook counter to Eersel’s body. Regian immediately shifts his feet, wedging his lead foot into the centerline of Riddell, and throws a check left hook counter while fading back behind his lead shoulder. The hook catches Riddell in the middle of a lever attempt.
Eersel keeps his shoulders square to his opponent, making it difficult for Njokuani to determine the punches coming at him. Regian combines a half-step with a jab feint to draw a reaction from the Nigerian before attempting to cut him off with a lead left hook. Take note of how Eersel takes two diagonal steps leftward, preemptively cutting off Njokuani’s exit along the ropes. Regian repeats the same feint from earlier but sneaks a right high kick behind it, which blindsides the Nigerian who is attempting to slip off to the opposite side.
Opening in southpaw, Eersel sneaks his lead leg to the inside angle of Holzken to set up a throwaway left knee upstairs. This draws Holzken’s guard up, and Regian (now standing orthodox) tosses a jab to Holzken’s guard to impede his visibility and maintain the shell of his opponent before drawing Holzken onto a right high kick. The inside angle encourages Nieky to exit to his left, since Eersel is angle slightly to his right side, but Eersel immediately punishes Holzken for falling into the trap.
Against Dewitt Pratt, Eersel did a commendable job herding the American into his right sided attacks. On a tactical level, Regian threw away a bunch of left-sided strikes before loading up on the right whilst taking angles to turn Pratt into his hardest shots.
As an orthodox striker, every time Pratt jabs, he pivots off his left leg and reangles with his right leg. Eersel takes full advantage of his opponent’s movement patterns by throwing away the left hook to herd Dewitt into the right hand. The flying knee counters Dewitt’s pivoting jab, and Eersel immediately pressures past the open-side body kick to blind Pratt with his lead hand before drawing him onto another right hand.
Eersel draws Dewitt onto a right switch knee, and as he’s landing, he immediately plants his left foot laterally. The right hand is thrown as Regian’s right leg is retracting, similar to the mechanics of a ‘punching-off-a-kick’ combination in the style of Andy Ristie.
I could easily just list a bunch of Eersel’s highlights and call it a day, but I really want to underscore how well-structured a fighter Regian is. His pressure and ability to draw exchanges with noncommittal strikes forces opponents to continually react. Amidst this type of drowning approach, one might assume that Eersel is only looking to stay busy, but his ability to make immediate, punishing reads is congruent with his initiative.
The one caveat I will provide is that Regian Eersel tends to need the initiative in order to get every part of his game rolling. His footwork off the backfoot can be a bit linear, and both Holzken and Riddell found success pushing the Dutchman back and building off their own entries (particularly when they worked the body). Eersel’s tactile guard can be the base of some effective counters, but at a certain point, he does wind up shelling too much for his own good. These habits could potentially hurt him against the nearly-indecipherable offense of Cédric Doumbé, should that bout against the Glory welterweight champion ever materialize.
Great Expectations
I don’t know how much ONE Championship has left to offer Regian Eersel, as far as challenges go. Two decisive, violent wins over former Glory golden boy Nieky Holzken is solid enough, but there wasn’t much need for a rematch in the first place and Holzken has been fading out of the sport for a while now. Eersel is a great champion without an exciting crop of challengers, and that might very well have taken him as far as it can in ONE.
However, that doesn’t detract from the quality of fighter Eersel has demonstrated himself to be and that is what counts. Like I said in the intro, analyzing kickboxing is quite a bit of fun for me (especially in comparison to MMA) because I can spend all of my time devoted to a singular fighter and their skillset, whilst ignoring the extraneous stuff. Estimating career trajectory or upcoming challenges is mostly empty space that I am not obligated to fill. If it wasn’t clear, Eersel is simply an absolute joy to watch and one of the most threatening, domineering pressure fighters in kickboxing. At the simplest of levels, that should be more than enough to warrant your attention.
I don’t know where Eersel goes next, but his firm grasp on the title couldn’t have come at a better time. With Doumbé seemingly on his way out of the sport and with Mohamed Mezouari’s return a looming question mark, it may not be terribly long before ‘The Immortal’ is considered the best 77kg kickboxer in the world.