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Main-event-
Hydrated-women's atomweight bout: Angela Lee vs. Jenny Huang
Co-main event-
Hydrated-lightweight bout: Shannon Wiratchai vs. Richard Corminal
Undercard-
Hydrated-strawweight bout: "Kru Rong" Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke vs. Joshua Pacio
Hydrated-strawweight bout: Kritsada Kongsrichai vs. Adrian Matheis
Hydrated-strawweight bout: Pongsiri Mitsatit vs. Rabin Catalan
Hydrated-women's atomweight bout: Rika "Tinydoll" Ishige vs. Audreylaura Boniface
Hydrated-featherweight bout: Ma Jia Wen vs. Yohan Mulia Legowo
Hydrated-featherweight bout: Sagetdao Petpayathai vs. Kelvin Ong
More fights will be added; Yodsanan Sityodtong is rumored to be participating.
ONE Championship™ is making its long-awaited, due in part to an event cancelation due to the death of the King of Thailand last October and the media blackout the Military junta forced on the country for a month as part of a "period of mourning", return to Thailand for its third card this year. In the main-event, Angela Lee is making the first defense of her women's atomweight title against Taiwanese grappler Jenny Huang.
Angela Lee, training out of a combination of EVOLVE in Singapore and her family's United MMA in Hawaii, is a cute broad-shouldered 20-year old Hawaiian-Singaporean-Canadian-Korean-whatever girl who made her professional debut inside ONE in 2015. After a steady rise in competition level, starting out with a pair of understandably-low-considering-its-your-professional-debut-and-you-wanna-get-off-to-a-good-start-so-it's-good girls and rising up to some solid competition, showing more and more promise and improvement with each fight (including a twister submission in her third victory), she got a gigantic step-up against the highly-accomplished Japanese fighter Mei Yamaguchi for ONE's inaugural women's championship last May. Stepping up to the challenge, Angela fought the DEEP Jewels, Valkyrie, and two-divisional Shootboxing champion and held her own every step of the way in not only a Fight of the Year contender, but one of the greatest women's shootfights of all time, winning a decision in the highly-competitive, extremely-close fight. After about 10 months away from the cage, she'll be making her first defense against the also-fast-improving-and-not-bad-looking Jenny Huang.
Huang debuted with ONE in 2015 as well, after amassing a 1-0 record as a professional, at the promotion's inaugural card in Myanmar, winning an extremely-close decision against the scrappy Russian Wushu practitioner Elena Pashnina. After getting two more victories in ONE in 2016, both submissions, she got the toughest test of her career in the scrappy, fast-improving Team Lakay girl April Osenio last December, who'd just upset Ann Osman in Malaysia a few months prior. In the very competitive, back-and-forth fight, Jenny Huang was able to utilize her strong grappling skills and match Angela Lee's accomplishment of getting a fancy submission early in her career by submitting the Filipina with a gogoplata in the second round.
A funfact about her is that she's got very wide hips, which ends up bolstering her grappling skills by supplying her body with a real strong base. It's one of the pros that women physically have over men in combat sports: men have wider shoulders, allowing for stronger punches; women have wider hips, allowing for stronger kicks- and grappling bases, and Huang's hips are wider than the average girl's, making her grappling base even stronger than most women.
In the battle of the broad shoulders vs. the wide hips, which cute Asian grappler will win? Find out on March 11th at the Impact Arena!
I wrote some stuff about the other fights if anyone's interested.
It's a pretty solid card, especially if you're a fan of the strawweight division and of pretty girls fighting. Instead of just girls fighting.
If you don't like either of those things, there's probably not much on it for you.
Also, like last time, there're gonna be a couple of bands playing on the card, but I don't know which ones. I saw it somewhere, but I didn't make a note of who they were.
Anyone else get some incestuous vibes from the Lee siblings?
Hydrated-women's atomweight bout: Angela Lee vs. Jenny Huang
Co-main event-
Hydrated-lightweight bout: Shannon Wiratchai vs. Richard Corminal
Undercard-
Hydrated-strawweight bout: "Kru Rong" Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke vs. Joshua Pacio
Hydrated-strawweight bout: Kritsada Kongsrichai vs. Adrian Matheis
Hydrated-strawweight bout: Pongsiri Mitsatit vs. Rabin Catalan
Hydrated-women's atomweight bout: Rika "Tinydoll" Ishige vs. Audreylaura Boniface
Hydrated-featherweight bout: Ma Jia Wen vs. Yohan Mulia Legowo
Hydrated-featherweight bout: Sagetdao Petpayathai vs. Kelvin Ong
More fights will be added; Yodsanan Sityodtong is rumored to be participating.
ONE Championship™ is making its long-awaited, due in part to an event cancelation due to the death of the King of Thailand last October and the media blackout the Military junta forced on the country for a month as part of a "period of mourning", return to Thailand for its third card this year. In the main-event, Angela Lee is making the first defense of her women's atomweight title against Taiwanese grappler Jenny Huang.
Angela Lee, training out of a combination of EVOLVE in Singapore and her family's United MMA in Hawaii, is a cute broad-shouldered 20-year old Hawaiian-Singaporean-Canadian-Korean-whatever girl who made her professional debut inside ONE in 2015. After a steady rise in competition level, starting out with a pair of understandably-low-considering-its-your-professional-debut-and-you-wanna-get-off-to-a-good-start-so-it's-good girls and rising up to some solid competition, showing more and more promise and improvement with each fight (including a twister submission in her third victory), she got a gigantic step-up against the highly-accomplished Japanese fighter Mei Yamaguchi for ONE's inaugural women's championship last May. Stepping up to the challenge, Angela fought the DEEP Jewels, Valkyrie, and two-divisional Shootboxing champion and held her own every step of the way in not only a Fight of the Year contender, but one of the greatest women's shootfights of all time, winning a decision in the highly-competitive, extremely-close fight. After about 10 months away from the cage, she'll be making her first defense against the also-fast-improving-and-not-bad-looking Jenny Huang.
Huang debuted with ONE in 2015 as well, after amassing a 1-0 record as a professional, at the promotion's inaugural card in Myanmar, winning an extremely-close decision against the scrappy Russian Wushu practitioner Elena Pashnina. After getting two more victories in ONE in 2016, both submissions, she got the toughest test of her career in the scrappy, fast-improving Team Lakay girl April Osenio last December, who'd just upset Ann Osman in Malaysia a few months prior. In the very competitive, back-and-forth fight, Jenny Huang was able to utilize her strong grappling skills and match Angela Lee's accomplishment of getting a fancy submission early in her career by submitting the Filipina with a gogoplata in the second round.
A funfact about her is that she's got very wide hips, which ends up bolstering her grappling skills by supplying her body with a real strong base. It's one of the pros that women physically have over men in combat sports: men have wider shoulders, allowing for stronger punches; women have wider hips, allowing for stronger kicks- and grappling bases, and Huang's hips are wider than the average girl's, making her grappling base even stronger than most women.
In the battle of the broad shoulders vs. the wide hips, which cute Asian grappler will win? Find out on March 11th at the Impact Arena!
I wrote some stuff about the other fights if anyone's interested.
In the co-main event-- or at least I think it's the co-main event, assuming no other fights get added-- Shannon Wiratchai of Bangkok Fight Lab is making his 7th return to the ONE cage and looking for his 5th victory, including his 3rd in a row since moving up to lightweight, against the first Filipino opponent of his career (unless Mitch Chilson's of Filipino descent) in Richard Corminal.
Wiratchai, holding much more experience and skill than his 6-1 (1) record would suggest, made his debut in ONE in 2012 after getting two victories in his native Thailand. His first two fights didn't go according to plan, as he first had a fight with Mitch Chilson end via no-contest after landing a soccer kick on the downed Chilson when the "open attack" signal wasn't in place, back when the open attack was a thing in ONE. He then lost a decision against the Pakistani-American wrassler Bashir Ahmad, but got his first official victory in a rematch with Chilson 14-months after their first fight, as he knocked out Chilson with another soccer kick, this time with no controversy. He then a big victory over Malaysian EVOLVE prospect Amir Khan, who was on a three-fight winning streak in ONE that included a victory over the man to defeat Wiratchai, Bashir Ahmad. In the highly-competitive and close fight, Shannon was able to use his experience and varied skillset to earn a split decision over the EVOLVE prospect.
A year later, Wiratchai had his first match as a part of the historic Myanmar-Thailand rivalry against Burmese Lethwei fighter Kyal Linn Aung, taking advantage of his grappling naivete and submitting his Burmese opponent in the first round.
Most recently, Wiratchai got the biggest victory of his career over the popular English-Malaysian (he might be Scottish or Welsh now that I've said that, but I think he's English) actor-model-fighter Peter Davis, who had a big size advantage on Shannon. Wiratchai almost knocked out his crowd-favorite opponent in the first round before Davis was saved by the bell, then got an astonishing near-finish of his own when he landed a backfist on Wiratchai that knocked him down in the second round. Shannon recovered and got a knockout victory over Davis in the same round.
Richard Corminal holds a solid 4-1 record and trains out of Muayfit in Malaysia. After amassing a 3-0 record with three knockouts, which included a solid victory over Trestle Tan (who's a lot better than his current 4-6 record suggests and holds victories over Jeff Huang and the then-5-0 Djatmiko Waluyo), he faced a setback when he got knocked out in Taiwan by John Chang the same month that his opponent Wiratchai defeated Amir Khan. After about a year-and-a-half away from MMA-- although he may have possibly had a boxing match during that time, assuming he's the same Richard Corminal on Boxrec, so he wasn't completely inactive-- he made his return at Full Metal Dojo in Thailand last September against a scrappy Cambodian opponent with a 5-1 record (although he could've had more fights than that, since Cambodia's got a very active underground circuit) Thai Ritty. Withstanding a lot of hard shots from the Cambodian Kun Khmer practitioner, Corminal showed a lot of heart and a well-rounded skillset, and a deceptive amount of experience that helped him secure his victory against his young 18-year old opponent in the entertaining brawl.
While Corminal doesn't hold his opponent's name value, he's not someone to be looked passed. He's got a very crafty striking game that includes very nice head-movement, and he's got good grappling, so, while he's the underdog for a reason, Wiratchai wouldn't be wise to take this fight lightly.
In a funfact, Wiratchai's girlfriend Rika Ishige is fighting on this card, making them the first boyfriend-girlfriend couple to be fighting on the same card in ONE history.
Rika Ishige is a cute Thai-Japanese girl who holds a 1-0 record (I think; it might have been an amateur fight, whatever.) Training with her boyfriend Shannon Wiratchai at Bangkok Fight Lab, she's got a solid team behind her and she's taken to grappling very well.
Her opponent Audreylaura Boniface, while holding an 0-1 pro record, has some victories in the ONE Silat organization-- at least two from what I've seen-- and she's a solid grappler in her own right. Training at the same gym that Malaysian ONE star Ann Osman is at, she also has a solid team behind her and she's got more experience and skill than she might appear to have at first glance, so this'll be a competitive fight. She also doesn't look half-bad.
Inaugural ONE Strawweight world champion, EVOLVE instructor and former Lumpinee stadium champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke is making his long-awaited return to the ONE cage since losing his strawweight championship to arguably the world's top strawweight in Nobita Naito against Joshua Pacio.
"Kru Rong" made his return to professional fighting in 2014 after retiring from Muay Thai in 2007 and taking a lucrative teaching position with EVOLVE in Singapore a few years later. Training with all the grapplers and being encouraged by his teammates, he took to the sport very well and joined ONE, where his Muay Thai skillset has been on full display in just about every fight he's had. After winning four fights in 2014 and showing an extreme amount of promise, he was given a shot at the inaugural ONE strawweight world title against the then-top-10 strawweight Roy Doliguez, who, like Dej', had a career in another combat sport before retiring from that and focusing on shootfighting, where he took to the sport very well, earning a 6-1 record and avenging the lone loss.
In the competitive, entertaining fight, Dejdamrong threw a series of flying roundhouse kicks to Doliguez midsection and trapped Doliguez' arm beneath his back to land hard strikes from the top position and stuffed a lot of Doliguez' desperate shoots, and Doliguez consistently swept Dejdamrong from the bottom [as an aside, Doliguez has also shown to be one of the best fighters in this sport to be able to sweep from mount, doing it several times against a highly-accomplished BJJ champion in his most recent fight, showing his skill with it against Dejdamrong wasn't a fluke] and landed hard body-hooks and took advantage of ONE's ruleset to land knees from north-south position. Going into the fifth round, The fight ending somewhat controversially, Dejdamrong accidentally poked Doliguez in the eye in the fifth round and once Doliguez recovered, he was tired out and Dejdamrong was landing a lot of shots. After landing an elbow to the eye that Doliguez was poked in, the referee stepped in and the fight was taken to the scorecards for a technical decision, with winning the inaugural strawweight championship and a top-5 ranking in the world.
Later that year, Kru Rong unofficially made the first defense of his strawweight title against the Shooto Brazil strawweight champion Yago Bryan. Yago Bryan missed weight by five pounds the day before, canceling the fight's title-status, and, after losing the first round (ONE doesn't score round-by-round, so "losing" the round isn't the same in other organizations, but it's still something to note), he spent the rest of the fight landing a series of roundhouse kicks off of his lead leg to Bryan's body, legs and head to win a handy decision.
Most recently, he had the biggest fight of his career against then-#2-ranked strawweight and Shooto world champion Nobita Naito in Nobita's ONE debut. After Dejdamrong won the first round in lopsided fashion (though sans any knockdowns or near-finishes, despite being lopsided), in typical Naito always-lose-the-first-round fashion, Nobita's wrestling and grappling skills took over as he took down, controlled and outgrappled Dejdamrong for another two-and-a-half rounds before submitting him with a rear-choke halfway through the fourth round.
Hoping to bounce back from defeat, Dejdamrong will be set up against the man whom Nobita defeated in his first title-defense against Team Lakay fighter Joshua Pacio.
Pacio is a scrappy 21-year old Team Lakay fighter who holds an 8-1 record (or 11-1, depending on what you consider his PXC Laban fights to be.) Struggling with weight problems throughout his childhood, he found the martial arts and lost the weight and he's since been taken to heights he probably didn't think he could've reached. He debuted with ONE in 2016 against fellow Filipino fighter (who's also fighting on this card) Rabin Catalan. After finishing his opponent in the second round, he was set up against his first Thai opponent in fellow prospect (who's also fighting on this card) Kritsada Kongsrichai, submitting his Thai opponent in the first round, refusing to give up against the physically strong wrestling champion and outgrappling the guy who appeared to be the superior grappler. Getting a gigantic step-up in competition, Pacio was set to face Nobita Naito last October in Myanmar and rose to the challenge, beating his opponent for two-and-a-half rounds (more than Dejdamrong was able to do, as Pacio actually won more of the fight outside of Nobita's usual first-round deficit) before Nobita finally got a solid takedown, advanced to Pacio's back and submitted the Filipino fighter in the third round.
The winner of this fight could very feasibly be only one or two wins away from getting another shot at Nobita Naito-- probably less than that if Dejdamrong wins-- and a lot is on the line for both of them. If the rumors of Mitsuhisa Sunabe leaving his longtime home of Pancrase for other organizations, namely ONE, are true, setting up the long-awaited strawweight superfight between Mitsuhisa Sunabe and Nobita Naito, the winner of this fight could have a lot more options.
In the second of the three strawweight bouts on the card, Kritsada Kongsrichai is a Thai national wrasslin' champion with a 4-3 record who was reared in the Full Metal Dojo organization before he made his ONE debut at the inaugural Thailand card last year, defeating Kev Hemmorlor via two-minute TKO. In addition to being a solid wrassler, he's a solid athlete and very strong, as is expected of a wrestling champion (even from Southeast-Asia.) He'll be looking for his second victory in ONE against his Indonesian adversary Adrian Matheis.
Matheis is a young Indonesian strawweight prospect that ONE hoped to build up last August at the second of their bi-annual Indonesian cards in a four-man, one-night tournament the night before the event. Winning both fights via knockout in a combined time of under two minutes-- which is extremely impressive at strawweight since knockout power is such a commodity in the division-- he started that track off very well, but hit a speed bump most recently when he fought the explosive Wushu world champion Rene Catalan, who was a lot more experienced than him and used that experience as he submitted him in the second round. Desperate for an Indonesian star, ONE will be happy if Matheis can upset the local favorite in Kongsrichai and emerge as a top-shelf strawweight prospect.
In the first strawweight bout of the evening, Thai prospect Pongsiri Mitsatit is looking to get his 8th professional victory and his 2nd inside ONE Championship™ against Filipino opponent Rabin Catalan. Pong, training out of Team Quest Thailand, is arguably the top Thai prospect in this sport, holding six finishes in his seven victories, five of them knockouts, and is another fighter who was reared in Full Metal Dojo before moving to ONE. Making his debut against Lethwei Golden Belt champion Ye Thwe Ni-- who, even for strawweight, looked real small for the division-- Pongisiri used the grappling skills attained through training at a branch of one of the preeminent wrasslin' camps in the world to control and submit his Burmese opponent in the first round. Looking for the second victory of his career and arguably the biggest victory of his young career, he'll be up against Rabin Cataln (no relation to the other famous Catalan brothers.)
Catalan is a Wushu fighter who made his debut at the first of ONE's bi-annual Manila cards in 2016 against fellow Filipino fighter Joshua Pacio, although his deficit in grappling skills led to the Team Lakay contender defeating him within one round. While it's likely, unless he's been hitting the mats hardcore for the last 11 months, he'll be at another grappling disadvantage, his striking and experience is still a big assset and he may be able to pull off the upset, and, hungry for his first victory in not only ONE Championship™, but in two calender years, he'll have a lot of motivation.
Yohan Mulia Legowo was one of the stars of the active Indonesian TPIFC organization in the early-00's, going 6-0 before losing to the greatest Indonesian shootfighter ever in Fransino Tirta. After 6 years of inactivity-- at least officially-- Legowo returned in the Legend FC organization with a submission victory before losing to eventual ROAD FC champion Jo Nam-Jin. After the organization folded, much like many other Legend FC fighters, Legowo found a home in ONE, unfortunately for him, though, he lost two fights in a row to current lightweight contender Ev Ting and EVOLVE prospect Benedict Ang. He got his first victory in six years just about a year ago from now against fellow Indonesian fighter Mario Satya Wirawan, submitting the odds-favorite in two minutes with a guillotine choke. In his most recent fight, he was submitted in the first round against fellow Indonesian opponent Su Noto, but he'll be looking to bounce back and make his struggling-in-MMA country proud against Chinese opponent Ma Jia Wen.
Ma Jia Wen was the runner-up in the 2015 Guangzhou one-night featherweight tournament, winning his promotional debut via knockout before losing a decision in the final. He got his second victory in the organization against fellow tournament runner-up Wang Ya Wei later that year in the alternate bout for the second Beijing featherweight tournament, but faced adversity again when he fought hyper-aggressive, promising Turkish-Dagestani prospect Saygid Arslan in Arslan's sophomore appearance in the promotion. In his most recent fight, he defeated former URCC Cebu champion Jimmy Yabo via 3rd-round knockout.
This'll be an interesting fight since it's probably the closest match on the entire card.
In the opening bout, the man who's now officially the most decorated Muay Thai fighter ever to fight in MMA, Sagetdao Petpayathai, is making his MMA debut against Kelvin Ong. Sagetdao, a former 5-time Lumpinee and Rajadamnern stadium champion, has now usurped fellow ONE fighter- and EVOLVE instructor Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke's status as the msot decorated what I already said. Only 30 years old, if he takes this sport seriously and wins, with his striking pedigree, he could end up having a great future in this sport. He'll be looking to get that started against his Malaysian adversary Kelvin Ong, who holds a 1-0 record. While not much information's known about Ong, this fight could follow the story we've all heard of the great striker who comes into the sport and gets outgrappled by the guy they were favored to beat, so anything could happen, but either way it'll be interesting.
Wiratchai, holding much more experience and skill than his 6-1 (1) record would suggest, made his debut in ONE in 2012 after getting two victories in his native Thailand. His first two fights didn't go according to plan, as he first had a fight with Mitch Chilson end via no-contest after landing a soccer kick on the downed Chilson when the "open attack" signal wasn't in place, back when the open attack was a thing in ONE. He then lost a decision against the Pakistani-American wrassler Bashir Ahmad, but got his first official victory in a rematch with Chilson 14-months after their first fight, as he knocked out Chilson with another soccer kick, this time with no controversy. He then a big victory over Malaysian EVOLVE prospect Amir Khan, who was on a three-fight winning streak in ONE that included a victory over the man to defeat Wiratchai, Bashir Ahmad. In the highly-competitive and close fight, Shannon was able to use his experience and varied skillset to earn a split decision over the EVOLVE prospect.
A year later, Wiratchai had his first match as a part of the historic Myanmar-Thailand rivalry against Burmese Lethwei fighter Kyal Linn Aung, taking advantage of his grappling naivete and submitting his Burmese opponent in the first round.
Most recently, Wiratchai got the biggest victory of his career over the popular English-Malaysian (he might be Scottish or Welsh now that I've said that, but I think he's English) actor-model-fighter Peter Davis, who had a big size advantage on Shannon. Wiratchai almost knocked out his crowd-favorite opponent in the first round before Davis was saved by the bell, then got an astonishing near-finish of his own when he landed a backfist on Wiratchai that knocked him down in the second round. Shannon recovered and got a knockout victory over Davis in the same round.
Richard Corminal holds a solid 4-1 record and trains out of Muayfit in Malaysia. After amassing a 3-0 record with three knockouts, which included a solid victory over Trestle Tan (who's a lot better than his current 4-6 record suggests and holds victories over Jeff Huang and the then-5-0 Djatmiko Waluyo), he faced a setback when he got knocked out in Taiwan by John Chang the same month that his opponent Wiratchai defeated Amir Khan. After about a year-and-a-half away from MMA-- although he may have possibly had a boxing match during that time, assuming he's the same Richard Corminal on Boxrec, so he wasn't completely inactive-- he made his return at Full Metal Dojo in Thailand last September against a scrappy Cambodian opponent with a 5-1 record (although he could've had more fights than that, since Cambodia's got a very active underground circuit) Thai Ritty. Withstanding a lot of hard shots from the Cambodian Kun Khmer practitioner, Corminal showed a lot of heart and a well-rounded skillset, and a deceptive amount of experience that helped him secure his victory against his young 18-year old opponent in the entertaining brawl.
While Corminal doesn't hold his opponent's name value, he's not someone to be looked passed. He's got a very crafty striking game that includes very nice head-movement, and he's got good grappling, so, while he's the underdog for a reason, Wiratchai wouldn't be wise to take this fight lightly.
In a funfact, Wiratchai's girlfriend Rika Ishige is fighting on this card, making them the first boyfriend-girlfriend couple to be fighting on the same card in ONE history.
Rika Ishige is a cute Thai-Japanese girl who holds a 1-0 record (I think; it might have been an amateur fight, whatever.) Training with her boyfriend Shannon Wiratchai at Bangkok Fight Lab, she's got a solid team behind her and she's taken to grappling very well.
Her opponent Audreylaura Boniface, while holding an 0-1 pro record, has some victories in the ONE Silat organization-- at least two from what I've seen-- and she's a solid grappler in her own right. Training at the same gym that Malaysian ONE star Ann Osman is at, she also has a solid team behind her and she's got more experience and skill than she might appear to have at first glance, so this'll be a competitive fight. She also doesn't look half-bad.
Inaugural ONE Strawweight world champion, EVOLVE instructor and former Lumpinee stadium champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke is making his long-awaited return to the ONE cage since losing his strawweight championship to arguably the world's top strawweight in Nobita Naito against Joshua Pacio.
"Kru Rong" made his return to professional fighting in 2014 after retiring from Muay Thai in 2007 and taking a lucrative teaching position with EVOLVE in Singapore a few years later. Training with all the grapplers and being encouraged by his teammates, he took to the sport very well and joined ONE, where his Muay Thai skillset has been on full display in just about every fight he's had. After winning four fights in 2014 and showing an extreme amount of promise, he was given a shot at the inaugural ONE strawweight world title against the then-top-10 strawweight Roy Doliguez, who, like Dej', had a career in another combat sport before retiring from that and focusing on shootfighting, where he took to the sport very well, earning a 6-1 record and avenging the lone loss.
In the competitive, entertaining fight, Dejdamrong threw a series of flying roundhouse kicks to Doliguez midsection and trapped Doliguez' arm beneath his back to land hard strikes from the top position and stuffed a lot of Doliguez' desperate shoots, and Doliguez consistently swept Dejdamrong from the bottom [as an aside, Doliguez has also shown to be one of the best fighters in this sport to be able to sweep from mount, doing it several times against a highly-accomplished BJJ champion in his most recent fight, showing his skill with it against Dejdamrong wasn't a fluke] and landed hard body-hooks and took advantage of ONE's ruleset to land knees from north-south position. Going into the fifth round, The fight ending somewhat controversially, Dejdamrong accidentally poked Doliguez in the eye in the fifth round and once Doliguez recovered, he was tired out and Dejdamrong was landing a lot of shots. After landing an elbow to the eye that Doliguez was poked in, the referee stepped in and the fight was taken to the scorecards for a technical decision, with winning the inaugural strawweight championship and a top-5 ranking in the world.
Later that year, Kru Rong unofficially made the first defense of his strawweight title against the Shooto Brazil strawweight champion Yago Bryan. Yago Bryan missed weight by five pounds the day before, canceling the fight's title-status, and, after losing the first round (ONE doesn't score round-by-round, so "losing" the round isn't the same in other organizations, but it's still something to note), he spent the rest of the fight landing a series of roundhouse kicks off of his lead leg to Bryan's body, legs and head to win a handy decision.
Most recently, he had the biggest fight of his career against then-#2-ranked strawweight and Shooto world champion Nobita Naito in Nobita's ONE debut. After Dejdamrong won the first round in lopsided fashion (though sans any knockdowns or near-finishes, despite being lopsided), in typical Naito always-lose-the-first-round fashion, Nobita's wrestling and grappling skills took over as he took down, controlled and outgrappled Dejdamrong for another two-and-a-half rounds before submitting him with a rear-choke halfway through the fourth round.
Hoping to bounce back from defeat, Dejdamrong will be set up against the man whom Nobita defeated in his first title-defense against Team Lakay fighter Joshua Pacio.
Pacio is a scrappy 21-year old Team Lakay fighter who holds an 8-1 record (or 11-1, depending on what you consider his PXC Laban fights to be.) Struggling with weight problems throughout his childhood, he found the martial arts and lost the weight and he's since been taken to heights he probably didn't think he could've reached. He debuted with ONE in 2016 against fellow Filipino fighter (who's also fighting on this card) Rabin Catalan. After finishing his opponent in the second round, he was set up against his first Thai opponent in fellow prospect (who's also fighting on this card) Kritsada Kongsrichai, submitting his Thai opponent in the first round, refusing to give up against the physically strong wrestling champion and outgrappling the guy who appeared to be the superior grappler. Getting a gigantic step-up in competition, Pacio was set to face Nobita Naito last October in Myanmar and rose to the challenge, beating his opponent for two-and-a-half rounds (more than Dejdamrong was able to do, as Pacio actually won more of the fight outside of Nobita's usual first-round deficit) before Nobita finally got a solid takedown, advanced to Pacio's back and submitted the Filipino fighter in the third round.
The winner of this fight could very feasibly be only one or two wins away from getting another shot at Nobita Naito-- probably less than that if Dejdamrong wins-- and a lot is on the line for both of them. If the rumors of Mitsuhisa Sunabe leaving his longtime home of Pancrase for other organizations, namely ONE, are true, setting up the long-awaited strawweight superfight between Mitsuhisa Sunabe and Nobita Naito, the winner of this fight could have a lot more options.
In the second of the three strawweight bouts on the card, Kritsada Kongsrichai is a Thai national wrasslin' champion with a 4-3 record who was reared in the Full Metal Dojo organization before he made his ONE debut at the inaugural Thailand card last year, defeating Kev Hemmorlor via two-minute TKO. In addition to being a solid wrassler, he's a solid athlete and very strong, as is expected of a wrestling champion (even from Southeast-Asia.) He'll be looking for his second victory in ONE against his Indonesian adversary Adrian Matheis.
Matheis is a young Indonesian strawweight prospect that ONE hoped to build up last August at the second of their bi-annual Indonesian cards in a four-man, one-night tournament the night before the event. Winning both fights via knockout in a combined time of under two minutes-- which is extremely impressive at strawweight since knockout power is such a commodity in the division-- he started that track off very well, but hit a speed bump most recently when he fought the explosive Wushu world champion Rene Catalan, who was a lot more experienced than him and used that experience as he submitted him in the second round. Desperate for an Indonesian star, ONE will be happy if Matheis can upset the local favorite in Kongsrichai and emerge as a top-shelf strawweight prospect.
In the first strawweight bout of the evening, Thai prospect Pongsiri Mitsatit is looking to get his 8th professional victory and his 2nd inside ONE Championship™ against Filipino opponent Rabin Catalan. Pong, training out of Team Quest Thailand, is arguably the top Thai prospect in this sport, holding six finishes in his seven victories, five of them knockouts, and is another fighter who was reared in Full Metal Dojo before moving to ONE. Making his debut against Lethwei Golden Belt champion Ye Thwe Ni-- who, even for strawweight, looked real small for the division-- Pongisiri used the grappling skills attained through training at a branch of one of the preeminent wrasslin' camps in the world to control and submit his Burmese opponent in the first round. Looking for the second victory of his career and arguably the biggest victory of his young career, he'll be up against Rabin Cataln (no relation to the other famous Catalan brothers.)
Catalan is a Wushu fighter who made his debut at the first of ONE's bi-annual Manila cards in 2016 against fellow Filipino fighter Joshua Pacio, although his deficit in grappling skills led to the Team Lakay contender defeating him within one round. While it's likely, unless he's been hitting the mats hardcore for the last 11 months, he'll be at another grappling disadvantage, his striking and experience is still a big assset and he may be able to pull off the upset, and, hungry for his first victory in not only ONE Championship™, but in two calender years, he'll have a lot of motivation.
Yohan Mulia Legowo was one of the stars of the active Indonesian TPIFC organization in the early-00's, going 6-0 before losing to the greatest Indonesian shootfighter ever in Fransino Tirta. After 6 years of inactivity-- at least officially-- Legowo returned in the Legend FC organization with a submission victory before losing to eventual ROAD FC champion Jo Nam-Jin. After the organization folded, much like many other Legend FC fighters, Legowo found a home in ONE, unfortunately for him, though, he lost two fights in a row to current lightweight contender Ev Ting and EVOLVE prospect Benedict Ang. He got his first victory in six years just about a year ago from now against fellow Indonesian fighter Mario Satya Wirawan, submitting the odds-favorite in two minutes with a guillotine choke. In his most recent fight, he was submitted in the first round against fellow Indonesian opponent Su Noto, but he'll be looking to bounce back and make his struggling-in-MMA country proud against Chinese opponent Ma Jia Wen.
Ma Jia Wen was the runner-up in the 2015 Guangzhou one-night featherweight tournament, winning his promotional debut via knockout before losing a decision in the final. He got his second victory in the organization against fellow tournament runner-up Wang Ya Wei later that year in the alternate bout for the second Beijing featherweight tournament, but faced adversity again when he fought hyper-aggressive, promising Turkish-Dagestani prospect Saygid Arslan in Arslan's sophomore appearance in the promotion. In his most recent fight, he defeated former URCC Cebu champion Jimmy Yabo via 3rd-round knockout.
This'll be an interesting fight since it's probably the closest match on the entire card.
In the opening bout, the man who's now officially the most decorated Muay Thai fighter ever to fight in MMA, Sagetdao Petpayathai, is making his MMA debut against Kelvin Ong. Sagetdao, a former 5-time Lumpinee and Rajadamnern stadium champion, has now usurped fellow ONE fighter- and EVOLVE instructor Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke's status as the msot decorated what I already said. Only 30 years old, if he takes this sport seriously and wins, with his striking pedigree, he could end up having a great future in this sport. He'll be looking to get that started against his Malaysian adversary Kelvin Ong, who holds a 1-0 record. While not much information's known about Ong, this fight could follow the story we've all heard of the great striker who comes into the sport and gets outgrappled by the guy they were favored to beat, so anything could happen, but either way it'll be interesting.
It's a pretty solid card, especially if you're a fan of the strawweight division and of pretty girls fighting. Instead of just girls fighting.
If you don't like either of those things, there's probably not much on it for you.
Also, like last time, there're gonna be a couple of bands playing on the card, but I don't know which ones. I saw it somewhere, but I didn't make a note of who they were.
Anyone else get some incestuous vibes from the Lee siblings?
