Seeing Superlek in KB against guys who are kickboxers is actually pretty fun for me, the problem with this fight is he is facing another nak muay. I also suspect the reasoning is they think Rodtang has a better chance of winning, but Im not sure that holds up to scrutiny. Neither guy is much of an elbow guy, and Rodtang loses a significant ability to inflict damage with the small gloves. You can tell the body shots especially are just so much more damaging. So then maybe the logic is that the clinch will be broken faster and the scoring will favor aggressive punching more? Well that falls apart too, because most ONE MT fights have fast breaks, refs constantly nagging for action, and judging that seems very MMA/KB inspired or at the very least entertainment MT. Perhaps the true motive is that if Rodtang loses they can keep him as champion and just brush it off as him bravely trying to jump into a KB title fight too hastily and almost winning anyways.
One nice thing about ONE though is the typical K-1/Glory point deductions dont seem to be much of a factor, so in a weird twist of irony it might even be slightly better. Its almost like we will get a MT fight where they just have a gentlemans agreement not to elbow.