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It took just 40 seconds and a knockout performance for Te Puke Muay Thai kickboxer Sarah Rankin to claim her title as national champion.

The Westpac bank teller competed in the Muay Thai Mayhem fight night in Mount Maunganui at the weekend and won the New Zealand Thai Boxing Association's phantom-weight division.

Ms Rankin's win was buoyed by those of her Red Dragons clubmates - seven of the nine who competed won their fights.

The wins had put them on "cloud nine", she said.

Ms Rankin was expected to last for five rounds of her fight. It was over in 40 seconds.

She knocked out her competitor, who is understood to have had triple the experience.

"When they picked her up she was still a bit awake, but she couldn't keep carrying on so I won by knockout."

Ms Rankin said her six weeks of training in Thailand earlier this year - as part of an American reality show already featured in the Bay of Plenty Times - helped. "I was training the whole time."

Now the goal is to win other national weight divisions and ultimately fight overseas.

Ms Rankin will be kept busy training with her clubmates and boyfriend Garth Fogden, who won his title in the amateur fights at the weekend.