While most of her friends were at prom, the 16-year-old was at Lumpinee Stadium finishing her opponent in under 90 seconds.

Olivia Bahsous stopped Phontip Khlongtoeiyouthcenter via TKO in 89 seconds to win her The Inner Circle 19 debut at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, June 19. The three-time IFMA Gold Medalist had accepted a prom invitation before the fight was confirmed. When ONE Championship called, the choice was immediate.

The Canadian teenager trains at Cookie Muay Thai and P’Chai Muay Thai, holds a 16-0 career record, and has been living away from her family for the better part of a year to compete on the global weekly stage. Prom was never going to be a difficult sacrifice.

“I got invited to prom maybe a month before, and I didn’t know if my fight was confirmed yet. So I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go, of course.’ I was so excited, looking for dresses and everything,” she said.

“But then, Mr. Chatri [Sityodtong] told me that I’d be fighting, and I was even happier. I didn’t regret my decision to fight on the same day as prom. I did miss it, but I’m not very sad about it. I’ll go again.”

Olivia Bahsous has no regrets

Olivia Bahsous carries a fighting career and a teenager’s social life in parallel, and she is honest about the cost of doing both. Homeschooled and spending most of her time in gyms or traveling, the friendships that most teenagers take for granted are harder to build.

She spoke about the trade-offs with a maturity that goes beyond her age.

“He took it smoothly. He was just proud of me, and it’s fine. But yeah, the hardest thing to balance is probably my social life outside of social media. Because I’m homeschooled, I don’t have many friends,” she said.

“I go to church three times a week, so I have friends there. But the hardest thing is probably the social life. However, I wouldn’t change my journey for anything.”