{"id":207973,"date":"2026-03-27T06:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207973\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T06:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:29:15","slug":"ufc-2-pioneer-muay-thai-champ-orlando-wiet-dead-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207973\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC 2 pioneer, muay thai champ Orlando Wiet dead at 60"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vaunted kickboxer Orlando Wiet<\/a>
\nmay have only picked up a single win in the sport of MMA, but it
\ncould not have come at a more opportune time.<\/p>\n

At the age of 60, Wiet, a champion in multiple kickboxing and muay
\nthai organizations and a competitor on the second-ever Ultimate Fighting Championship<\/a> event, died
\nafter a lengthy battle with an undisclosed illness. As a
\nprofessional, Wiet\u2019s record stood at a lone win opposite five
\ndefeats, but that only accounts for his time as a mixed martial
\nartist. French outlet
\nLes Infos du Fight<\/a> broke the news on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Born in Suriname and trained in the ways of Dutch kickboxing
\nalongside legendary names like Ramon Dekkers, Bas Rutten<\/a> and
\nFred Royers, Wiet officially represented kickboxing at UFC 2<\/a> in
\n1994. Inside of the Mammoth Gardens in Denver, \u201cThe Gladiator\u201d
\npicked up his sole career triumph when he beat far larger fellow
\nkickboxer Robert
\nLucarelli<\/a> so badly that his team had to throw in the towel.
\nThis brutal win helped put European muay thai on the map of the
\nburgeoning MMA landscape.<\/p>\n

Weighing around 70 pounds more than his adversary, Lucarelli
\nattempted to grapple with the fighter hailing at the time from
\nFrance. The smaller, slicker Wiet survived an unorthodox reverse
\nbulldog choke while on the ground to recover and shellack Lucarelli
\nwith soccer kicks, knees and a torrent of destructive 12-to-6
\nelbows\u2014rules at the time permitted all of these blows that were
\nlater banned stateside.<\/p>\n

Having advanced to the quarterfinals, Wiet was matched against the
\nmassive Remco
\nPardoel<\/a>, who stood at least six inches taller while weighing
\naround 90 pounds heavier. The relatively diminutive Wiet was hurled
\nto the mat by the judoka right off the bat, and he could not get
\noff his back while the gi-clad Pardoel smothered him. His UFC
\ntournament dreams when up in smoke when Pardoel sent him to
\ndreamland with a finalizing barrage of devastating elbows.<\/p>\n

Wiet returned the following year at the first United Full Contact
\nFederation event, where he was matched against someone his own size
\nin American grappler and middleweight Todd
\nBjornethun<\/a>. Wiet succumbed to a triangle choke after over five
\nminutes of action, which set the stage for the remainder of his
\nprofessional career. After a decade away\u2014much of it spent inside of
\nthe kickboxing ring\u2014Wiet tried three more times in his native
\nEurope to pick up another victory, only for Mario
\nStapel<\/a>, Paul Jenkins<\/a>
\nand Zoran
\nMilovic<\/a> to tap him out in their respective matches.<\/p>\n

Fast as Lightning
\n
\nGiven the spotty nature of recordkeeping for kickboxing and muay
\nthai, Wiet\u2019s pro record remains a bit nebulous but ran upwards of
\n180 bouts depending on the source. At the time of his 1994 UFC
\ndebut, announcer Rich Goins claimed his record was 54-9 with 12
\nknockouts, where he served as the \u201c1993 muay thai world champion\u201d
\nwithout designating which organization or location. He was also
\nsaid to have \u201cdominated the world of thai boxing for seven years,
\nfast as lightning.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his lengthy kickboxing career that spanned well over
\na decade, Wiet competed as a boxer in 23 matches across Asia and
\nEurope. After four of his first five bouts coming in Yokohama and
\nNagoya, Japan, the Netherlands resident returned to his native
\nEurope to throw down and pick up 11 wins, six of those by stoppage.
\nOf note, he outpointed up-and-comer Alloua Anko (11-2) in 1997 and
\n26-3-3 Andras Galfi the year after.<\/p>\n


\nLes Infos du Fight<\/a> contacted friend and fellow training partner
\nGregory Tony, himself a champion-level heavyweight kickboxer from
\nFrance. Tony mourned his fallen friend, while giving thanks to
\nthose that took care of him during his illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really sad, I\u2019m really hurt because, again, it’s a departure
\ntoo soon,\u201d Tony said, translation via Google Translate. \u201cHe gave us
\nhis warrior spirit in the ring. He\u2019s done some amazing things in
\nboxing all over the world, not to mention the UFC. He was someone
\nwho gave so much to others, as a coach. When Orlando fought, the
\ncrowd moved in en masse to see this formidable boxer. I would like
\nto thank Chayem
\nArezki<\/a>, who has been taking care of Orlando for more than two
\nmonths, giving him all the care he needed, shaving, feeding him,
\nkeeping him company and most of all letting everyone know about the
\nsituation. A big thank you to him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vaunted kickboxer Orlando Wiet may have only picked up a single win in the sport of MMA, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1111,95289,115,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-207973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-article","tag-https-www-sherdog-com-news-news-ufc","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}