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Main-event-
Hyd.-flyweight interim title-fight: Geje “Gravity” Eustaquio vs. Kairat “The Kazakh” Akhmetov II
Co-main event-
Hyd.-strawweight bout: Joshua “The Passion” Pacio vs. Lan Ming Qiang
Caged Muay Thai feature match: Sam-A Kaiyanghadaogym vs. Joseph Lasiri
Main card-
Hyd.-featherweight bout: Eric “The Natural” Kelly vs. Rafael “Indio” Nunes
Hyd.-flyweight bout: Sotir Kichukov vs. “The Southern Eagle” Ma Hao Bin
Hyd.-strawweight bout: Yago “Cordoninha” Bryan vs. Hayato Suzuki
Prelims-
Hyd.-featherweight bout: Bruno Pucci “Eater” vs. Emilio “The Honey Badger” Urutia
Hyd.-featherweight bout: Edward “The Ferocious” Kelly vs. Meas Meu
Hyd.-lightweight bout: Rajinder Singh “Knockout” Meena vs. Zhang Ze Hao
In the main-event in ONE’s first trip to Manila of 2018 (hopefully the first of four, if everything goes right), the third-ever Filipino champion of a major organization in MMA history is looking to be crowned as Geje Eustaquio rematches the 2nd-ever flyweight champion in ONE’s history in the first Kazakhstani champion of a major organization in MMA history, Kairat Akhmetov.
It may be a somewhat controversial main-event, since they’re both flyweights and, though that’s not nearly as much of an issue in Asia (most especially southeast-Asia), historically, ONE’s cards with Geje in a major role as the Filipino guy haven’t done as well as cards with his Team Lakay contemporaries Eduard Folayang, Honorio Banario and Kevin Belingon have. Hopefully this works out for ONE, though, since it’d be great for Geje and Kairat if it did.
For the favorite, Kairat Akhmetov…
… was born in Kazakhstan and quickly grew attached to the central-Asian past-time that is the art of the single-leg. He really holds the classic story you hear of American wrestlers who credit their family’s positive influence in their upbringing as leading them to success, along with a strong work ethic. Except he’s from Kazakhstan. It’s pretty interesting to hear a mirrored version of the quintessential successful-wrestler’s background story told from a different country. He ended up becoming a national champion and a Greco-Roman world champion, amid a bunch of other accomplishments.
After transitioning to what his true dream was when he got old enough (and had the opportunities to learn to ply his wrestling skills to the craft of shootfighting), he ended up winning two one-night tournaments in a row [one four-man and another 8-man], finishing 16 of his first 17 victories, 15 in the first round, and gaining some victories over the underrated Korean Yoo Jae-Nam, Outsider veteran Tatsuya Watanabe, and Frenchman Salah Elkas (who was on a three-fight winning streak and won him the Alash Pride title-- a very good accomplishment for the region). He then joined ONE, and though his debut was delayed, he earned a victory in the interim over the first man to defeat Conor Mcgregor, Artemij Sitenkov. He was given an immediate title-shot for his wait, along with a chance to train at Greg Jackson’s, and in a very competitive back-and-forth fight, Kairat ended up upsetting the multiple-time-defending champion, top-15 flyweight and explosive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Adriano Moraes via split decision (a testament to how close the fight really was given ONE’s scoring system.)
A rematch was scheduled for a few months later, but, unfortunately, an injury to Kairat nixed it, then when it was scheduled again (almost 10 months later) another injury to Kairat canceled it, and Moraes won the interim title with a submission over Kyrgyzstan fighter Tilek Baktyrov. The injury-- a problem with his spine and a detached retina I believe-- along with some personal issues that he didn’t want to discuss delayed Kairat’s return-- and the rematch with Moraes-- for just under two years.
The layoff, unfortunately, ended up having an effect on Kairat, as, though he rocked Adriano in the fight a couple times, Moraes’ extensive body-work (he used his height advantage to land rear-round kicks to the body throughout the fight, and by the time the third round came along it was clear they‘d taken their toll), explosion-based takedowns and top-game led him to win a clear unanimous decision.
Kairat’s return fight didn’t go exactly as planned, which I’ll get into later.
After transitioning to what his true dream was when he got old enough (and had the opportunities to learn to ply his wrestling skills to the craft of shootfighting), he ended up winning two one-night tournaments in a row [one four-man and another 8-man], finishing 16 of his first 17 victories, 15 in the first round, and gaining some victories over the underrated Korean Yoo Jae-Nam, Outsider veteran Tatsuya Watanabe, and Frenchman Salah Elkas (who was on a three-fight winning streak and won him the Alash Pride title-- a very good accomplishment for the region). He then joined ONE, and though his debut was delayed, he earned a victory in the interim over the first man to defeat Conor Mcgregor, Artemij Sitenkov. He was given an immediate title-shot for his wait, along with a chance to train at Greg Jackson’s, and in a very competitive back-and-forth fight, Kairat ended up upsetting the multiple-time-defending champion, top-15 flyweight and explosive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Adriano Moraes via split decision (a testament to how close the fight really was given ONE’s scoring system.)
A rematch was scheduled for a few months later, but, unfortunately, an injury to Kairat nixed it, then when it was scheduled again (almost 10 months later) another injury to Kairat canceled it, and Moraes won the interim title with a submission over Kyrgyzstan fighter Tilek Baktyrov. The injury-- a problem with his spine and a detached retina I believe-- along with some personal issues that he didn’t want to discuss delayed Kairat’s return-- and the rematch with Moraes-- for just under two years.
The layoff, unfortunately, ended up having an effect on Kairat, as, though he rocked Adriano in the fight a couple times, Moraes’ extensive body-work (he used his height advantage to land rear-round kicks to the body throughout the fight, and by the time the third round came along it was clear they‘d taken their toll), explosion-based takedowns and top-game led him to win a clear unanimous decision.
Kairat’s return fight didn’t go exactly as planned, which I’ll get into later.
Geje Eustaquio, people may forget, actually challenged for the inaugural flyweight title in ONE.
Another impoverished Filipino who used the martial arts to claw his way out of his circumstances, Geje was a part of the Philippines National Wushu team under Team Lakay head Mark Sanguiao, whom he still trains with today.
After winning his first two fights, impressively, Geje lost his first fight via split decision and was signed to ONE shortly after (or maybe it was before but he had the other fight scheduled). He defeated the current #1 strawweight in the world in Alex Silva in his debut, and then defeated another good strawweight in Rabin Catalan in his next fight (outside ONE) to earn a 4-1 record. Geje ran into tough times after, though, as he fought bantamweight-attempting-and-failing-to-make-flyweight Andrew Leone (who weighed in about 3 pounds over the weight-limit-- which is a lot heavier at flyweight than it is at, like, middleweight or even lightweight), and Leone’s size-advantage came into play immediately. Though Geje had his moments-- a testament to how drained Leone was even three pounds over the flyweight limit-- the American’s wrestling skills and size proved too much as he wrestlefucked Geje to a unanimous decision victory.
After earning a pair of handy victories over then-5-0 Filipino Nak Muay, Eugene Toquero, and a very close victory over former-top-20 flyweight (he was only a year removed from that ranking, too) slugger Kentaro Watanabe in the quarterfinals of the ONE flyweight Grand Prix, Eustaquio challenged fellow finalist Adriano Moraes for the flyweight belt in ONE‘s debut trip to Cambodia. The interesting thing about the fight was that Geje showed very good wrestling skills, and he not only defended a very deep single by Moraes and showed very good balance, but he was controlling the bigger fighter with supposedly-superior wrestling in the clinch, showed good transitioning skills to get up from the bottom, and made Moraes really work to get the one takedown of the fight. Unfortunately, that takedown led to a scramble where Moraes locked in a guillotine choke.
Before I say anything else, the cool thing about Geje that I really like is that he’s in a line of fighters I think of as defensive-strikers. They’re basically like the striking equivalent of a conservative grappler who grinds their way to a decision, except the skills required take a lot more tact than having a double-leg/advance-to-half-guard game/win-a-decision game (that’s not to denigrate those kinds of wrestlers, it’s just a factor of both of their games). Their plan is built around using their striking skills to, above all else, keep themselves safe and to damage their opponents.
It’s basically a death-by-a-thousand-cuts style; their strikes won’t be hard, but theirs will land and yours won’t. It takes a deep understanding of a lot of very difficult concepts like positioning and distancing, different guards and parries, timing, foot placement, head-movement and regular-movement, and knowing which strikes to throw and at what point (it’s a slightly different thing from timing). Tarec Saffiedine’s probably the best example of this kind of fighter that I can think of; he doesn’t throw super hard strikes, but they land while yours don’t, and they land well.
That’s really the entire key about this style: their strikes don’t land hard, but, rather than just being a pitter-patter shot, the fighter makes sure they land solidly. When a shot is landed well, it doesn’t necessarily matter if it was a hard shot or not: it does its job. Which makes the damage creep up on people much more than just any light shot would.
Geje isn’t only an example of this kind of style, but he also has the striking skills necessary in order to outstrike people who are taller and rangier than him. Normally, if you’re on the outside, the guy with longer arms and a taller frame will be at an advantage since their striking distance is so much longer than yours, so you have to close the distance and throw big shots to be effective, which is obvious.
But Geje, because of his defensive striking skills, is able to effectively outstrike taller fighters from the outfighting range. He basically just avoids his opponents strikes and makes them waste energy with their attempts as he carefully piles on round kicks to the body; they’re not very hard strikes, as they land with the foot, but he throws them sharply and taller opponents have more fragile midsections than shorter guys, so the damage is greater. And he mixes in some nice, solid jabs, light hooks, and some round kicks to the legs as well, to ultimately win decisions (and pretty safely, too; I doubt if Geje’s had too many injuries with this kind of style, even in training).
It’s not a particularly fan-friendly style considering we‘re talking about strikers here, but it’s one that I’ve always really liked when it’s done well.
After this fight, Geje’s style failed him a little as he lost an extremely-competitive split decision against Thai kickboxer Anatpong Bunrad, but he improved and after moving up to bantamweight briefly in accordance with ONE’s new weigh-in rules, got a highlight-reel 30-second knockout against Saiful Merican with the patented Team Lakay Wushu counter-lead-hook (the first one of its kind to land in ONE history of all the Team Lakay members who use that hook as a part of their defensive games, and this fight showed why). Then followed that up with a decision victory against Gianni Subba, who was coming off a victory over Bunrad.
His winning streak came to an end when he was matched up with Finnish CWFC bantamweight champion Toni Tauru, who had almost 5 inches on Geje and carried his hydrated-145 pounds much differently than Geje did his hydrated-143. Though Geje was impressing again with his striking skills against a bigger, rangier fighter, a Tauru clinch-entrance, takedown and back-take led to a typical Tauru rear-choke finish in the first round.
Geje dropped back down to flyweight after this, and avenged the loss to Bunrad in the process. He was then matched up with Kairat Akhmetov, whom he lost to and is now getting a rematch against.
After winning his first two fights, impressively, Geje lost his first fight via split decision and was signed to ONE shortly after (or maybe it was before but he had the other fight scheduled). He defeated the current #1 strawweight in the world in Alex Silva in his debut, and then defeated another good strawweight in Rabin Catalan in his next fight (outside ONE) to earn a 4-1 record. Geje ran into tough times after, though, as he fought bantamweight-attempting-and-failing-to-make-flyweight Andrew Leone (who weighed in about 3 pounds over the weight-limit-- which is a lot heavier at flyweight than it is at, like, middleweight or even lightweight), and Leone’s size-advantage came into play immediately. Though Geje had his moments-- a testament to how drained Leone was even three pounds over the flyweight limit-- the American’s wrestling skills and size proved too much as he wrestlefucked Geje to a unanimous decision victory.
After earning a pair of handy victories over then-5-0 Filipino Nak Muay, Eugene Toquero, and a very close victory over former-top-20 flyweight (he was only a year removed from that ranking, too) slugger Kentaro Watanabe in the quarterfinals of the ONE flyweight Grand Prix, Eustaquio challenged fellow finalist Adriano Moraes for the flyweight belt in ONE‘s debut trip to Cambodia. The interesting thing about the fight was that Geje showed very good wrestling skills, and he not only defended a very deep single by Moraes and showed very good balance, but he was controlling the bigger fighter with supposedly-superior wrestling in the clinch, showed good transitioning skills to get up from the bottom, and made Moraes really work to get the one takedown of the fight. Unfortunately, that takedown led to a scramble where Moraes locked in a guillotine choke.
Before I say anything else, the cool thing about Geje that I really like is that he’s in a line of fighters I think of as defensive-strikers. They’re basically like the striking equivalent of a conservative grappler who grinds their way to a decision, except the skills required take a lot more tact than having a double-leg/advance-to-half-guard game/win-a-decision game (that’s not to denigrate those kinds of wrestlers, it’s just a factor of both of their games). Their plan is built around using their striking skills to, above all else, keep themselves safe and to damage their opponents.
It’s basically a death-by-a-thousand-cuts style; their strikes won’t be hard, but theirs will land and yours won’t. It takes a deep understanding of a lot of very difficult concepts like positioning and distancing, different guards and parries, timing, foot placement, head-movement and regular-movement, and knowing which strikes to throw and at what point (it’s a slightly different thing from timing). Tarec Saffiedine’s probably the best example of this kind of fighter that I can think of; he doesn’t throw super hard strikes, but they land while yours don’t, and they land well.
That’s really the entire key about this style: their strikes don’t land hard, but, rather than just being a pitter-patter shot, the fighter makes sure they land solidly. When a shot is landed well, it doesn’t necessarily matter if it was a hard shot or not: it does its job. Which makes the damage creep up on people much more than just any light shot would.
Geje isn’t only an example of this kind of style, but he also has the striking skills necessary in order to outstrike people who are taller and rangier than him. Normally, if you’re on the outside, the guy with longer arms and a taller frame will be at an advantage since their striking distance is so much longer than yours, so you have to close the distance and throw big shots to be effective, which is obvious.
But Geje, because of his defensive striking skills, is able to effectively outstrike taller fighters from the outfighting range. He basically just avoids his opponents strikes and makes them waste energy with their attempts as he carefully piles on round kicks to the body; they’re not very hard strikes, as they land with the foot, but he throws them sharply and taller opponents have more fragile midsections than shorter guys, so the damage is greater. And he mixes in some nice, solid jabs, light hooks, and some round kicks to the legs as well, to ultimately win decisions (and pretty safely, too; I doubt if Geje’s had too many injuries with this kind of style, even in training).
It’s not a particularly fan-friendly style considering we‘re talking about strikers here, but it’s one that I’ve always really liked when it’s done well.
After this fight, Geje’s style failed him a little as he lost an extremely-competitive split decision against Thai kickboxer Anatpong Bunrad, but he improved and after moving up to bantamweight briefly in accordance with ONE’s new weigh-in rules, got a highlight-reel 30-second knockout against Saiful Merican with the patented Team Lakay Wushu counter-lead-hook (the first one of its kind to land in ONE history of all the Team Lakay members who use that hook as a part of their defensive games, and this fight showed why). Then followed that up with a decision victory against Gianni Subba, who was coming off a victory over Bunrad.
His winning streak came to an end when he was matched up with Finnish CWFC bantamweight champion Toni Tauru, who had almost 5 inches on Geje and carried his hydrated-145 pounds much differently than Geje did his hydrated-143. Though Geje was impressing again with his striking skills against a bigger, rangier fighter, a Tauru clinch-entrance, takedown and back-take led to a typical Tauru rear-choke finish in the first round.
Geje dropped back down to flyweight after this, and avenged the loss to Bunrad in the process. He was then matched up with Kairat Akhmetov, whom he lost to and is now getting a rematch against.
A lot of you might be wondering, “Why is this rematch happening? Kairat won the first fight.” But the people who watched the fight know, and if you haven’t been able to, I’ll explain what happened. The fight strategies for both men were pretty typical: Kairat was gonna use his World Championship wrestling skills to control Geje and hopefully get a finish, while Geje was gonna use his defensive striking skills to rack up damage over the fight and hopefully get a finish. Kairat was the first to find success with this, as he took down Geje and was controlling him (albeit not that dominantly, since Geje has the underrated defensive grappling skills of Team Lakay in his toolbox) in the first round, but about halfway through the round Geje landed a very hard upkick on Kairat’s chin that forced Kairat to look at the referee, wave his hands and then back away, fall to his knees, and put his hands over his head. Then Geje stood up over him about to throw punches when the referee stepped in. Sounds like a knockout, right?
The referee didn’t think so.
So the fight was called to a halt for some reason, controversy arose, and the fight was re-started after a couple minutes of recovery for Kairat. Akhmetov‘s wrestling skills ended up pulling through for the remaining two rounds, as he took down and controlled Geje, but a lot of people feel that Geje was basically robbed of a knockout victory and that it wasn’t his fault the referee didn’t do his job-- in the round-by-round scoring system, that‘s basically grounds for a 10-7 round. One judge sided with Eustaquio and another sided with Akhmetov, viewing his top control as impressive enough to overrule the controversy of the referee.
With Adriano Moraes’ situation with ONE cloudy-- it looks like he might be wanting to leave for the UFC and that he’s towards the end of his contract with ONE-- an interim title for the flyweight division has been created much akin to the one the UFC created in the heavyweight division when Randy Couture was trying to fight Fedor. Should Moraes not return, this person could very well become the undisputed ONE flyweight champion and a top-20-ish flyweight in the process.
In the co-main event…
Joshua Pacio is another story of the fat kid who was bullied and took to the martial arts to defend himself, lose some weight and get stronger, and his passion sunk in. He quickly became arguably the top prospect in all of Team Lakay (and the Philippines) as he made his pro debut at 17 and, over the course of the next three years, earned a very solid 10-0 record with 9 finishes, including victory in a one-night, four-man tournament. He was signed to ONE shortly after that 10th victory (the tournament I mentioned) and won his debut in the organization a mere two weeks later, knocking out Filipino strawweight Rabin Catalan in two rounds. He then fought Thai wrestling champion Kritsada Kongsrichai-- another promising Southeast-Asian prospect-- and submitted him in the first round.
The thing that really separates Pacio from the rest of the Team Lakay school is how much he’s taken to wrestling in the typically wrestling-deprived region that is the Philippines. Though he has great striking, thanks to training with the rest of the Wushu champions at the team, his style is built much more around taking his opponents down-- using the explosive Wushu belly-to-belly lifts that it seems like every member of Team Lakay has-- and landing ground strikes from top position.
He got a gigantic step-up in competition when he faced the newly-crowned ONE strawweight world champion (and then-#2 strawweight in the world) Nobita Naito in Naito’s first defense. Pacio impressed by controlling the fight and outstriking his hyper-elite Japanese opponent for two rounds while defending all of Nobita’s takedowns. Doing that for one round against Nobita is one thing, since he’s always had a tendency to struggle in the opening round, but doing it after that is a big accomplishment, and Pacio raised a lot of eyebrows afterwards. A third-round takedown by Nobita and a follow up submission ended the fight for Pacio, but his stock went up regardless.
He got the biggest victory of his career afterwards as he was matched up with former top-5 strawweight and Lumpinee stadium champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke in Dej’s first fight since losing his strawweight title to Nobita Naito. Pacio’s wrestling continued to improve, however, as he explosively took down Dejdamrong and controlled him from the top for most of the fight. Though Dej’ made a comeback in the third round and tired out Pacio really bad, a Pacio takedown at the end of the fight kind of halted that momentum, and Pacio ultimately won a split decision and earned himself a top-10 ranking at strawweight.
Pacio’s next fight mirrored that accomplishment, and he was matched up with 15-0 Japanese wrestling champion in Hayato Suzuki in his strawweight debut 5 months later.
The official experience with wrestling proved to be a factor, as Pacio was taken down early and his connection with the “wrestlers don’t like being on their backs” idea was supported, as Suzuki soon after got a submission win.
Pacio rebounded with a highlight-reel knockout of former top-10 strawweight Roy Doliguez (who was just coming off his own highlight-reel knockout over former Shooto Brazil champion Yago Bryan), when he landed a spinning-backfist on Doliguez’ chin as he tried to move in to counter a missed Pacio leg-kick with a loaded-up three-two, just three months later.
Interestingly, his teammate Eduard Folayang got knocked out later that night when he attempted a spinning back-fist and his opponent countered with a right-hand.
Lan Ming Qian is a 2-0 shootfighter apparently in his local China. A training partner of a person who‘s also fighting on this card, Ma Hao Bin, Lan Ming Qian is a Wushu practitioner who holds a 16-2 record in Sanda (Wushu sparring) and has won some nice titles in China (probably the best region in the world for Wushu competition) during that time, as he should‘ve probably. At 24 years old and with years of Wushu competition under his belt, he has more experience and craft than just his 2-0 record may suggest, and as a training partner of a Chinese national wrestling champion, he‘s likely to have a lot more grappling skill than his background would suggest, too. And given that he‘s a different opponent from the guy that was originally scheduled to fight-- Pongsiri Mitsatit-- and that Pacio has very little time to adjust, especially with the lack of film on him, Lan could completely surprise Pacio.
He may also get destroyed and provide another highlight-reel moment for the Filipino, which is more likely. But don‘t count him out yet. The strawweight division‘s still lke the wild west in a lot of ways; the fighters are very high-level, but crazy shit can happen in it.
Though the original bout had a lot more luster to it (Pacio was matched up with 8-0 Thai strawweight wunderkind Pongsiri Mitsatit), should Pacio win, he could very feasibly become the #1-contender for the top strawweight in the world, Alex Silva’s ONE belt. And he’d become the top strawweight in the world (a title that holds more than enough prestige to be at least a top-20 pound-for-pound fighter, if not top-15). And if the Chinaman ends up using his own Wushu skills to pull off the upset, he’ll become a top-10 strawweight in the process and could only be another win or two away from his own title-shot.
So, if you love the little guys like me, this’s one you really won’t want to miss.
The thing that really separates Pacio from the rest of the Team Lakay school is how much he’s taken to wrestling in the typically wrestling-deprived region that is the Philippines. Though he has great striking, thanks to training with the rest of the Wushu champions at the team, his style is built much more around taking his opponents down-- using the explosive Wushu belly-to-belly lifts that it seems like every member of Team Lakay has-- and landing ground strikes from top position.
He got a gigantic step-up in competition when he faced the newly-crowned ONE strawweight world champion (and then-#2 strawweight in the world) Nobita Naito in Naito’s first defense. Pacio impressed by controlling the fight and outstriking his hyper-elite Japanese opponent for two rounds while defending all of Nobita’s takedowns. Doing that for one round against Nobita is one thing, since he’s always had a tendency to struggle in the opening round, but doing it after that is a big accomplishment, and Pacio raised a lot of eyebrows afterwards. A third-round takedown by Nobita and a follow up submission ended the fight for Pacio, but his stock went up regardless.
He got the biggest victory of his career afterwards as he was matched up with former top-5 strawweight and Lumpinee stadium champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke in Dej’s first fight since losing his strawweight title to Nobita Naito. Pacio’s wrestling continued to improve, however, as he explosively took down Dejdamrong and controlled him from the top for most of the fight. Though Dej’ made a comeback in the third round and tired out Pacio really bad, a Pacio takedown at the end of the fight kind of halted that momentum, and Pacio ultimately won a split decision and earned himself a top-10 ranking at strawweight.
Pacio’s next fight mirrored that accomplishment, and he was matched up with 15-0 Japanese wrestling champion in Hayato Suzuki in his strawweight debut 5 months later.
The official experience with wrestling proved to be a factor, as Pacio was taken down early and his connection with the “wrestlers don’t like being on their backs” idea was supported, as Suzuki soon after got a submission win.
Pacio rebounded with a highlight-reel knockout of former top-10 strawweight Roy Doliguez (who was just coming off his own highlight-reel knockout over former Shooto Brazil champion Yago Bryan), when he landed a spinning-backfist on Doliguez’ chin as he tried to move in to counter a missed Pacio leg-kick with a loaded-up three-two, just three months later.
Interestingly, his teammate Eduard Folayang got knocked out later that night when he attempted a spinning back-fist and his opponent countered with a right-hand.
Lan Ming Qian is a 2-0 shootfighter apparently in his local China. A training partner of a person who‘s also fighting on this card, Ma Hao Bin, Lan Ming Qian is a Wushu practitioner who holds a 16-2 record in Sanda (Wushu sparring) and has won some nice titles in China (probably the best region in the world for Wushu competition) during that time, as he should‘ve probably. At 24 years old and with years of Wushu competition under his belt, he has more experience and craft than just his 2-0 record may suggest, and as a training partner of a Chinese national wrestling champion, he‘s likely to have a lot more grappling skill than his background would suggest, too. And given that he‘s a different opponent from the guy that was originally scheduled to fight-- Pongsiri Mitsatit-- and that Pacio has very little time to adjust, especially with the lack of film on him, Lan could completely surprise Pacio.
He may also get destroyed and provide another highlight-reel moment for the Filipino, which is more likely. But don‘t count him out yet. The strawweight division‘s still lke the wild west in a lot of ways; the fighters are very high-level, but crazy shit can happen in it.
Though the original bout had a lot more luster to it (Pacio was matched up with 8-0 Thai strawweight wunderkind Pongsiri Mitsatit), should Pacio win, he could very feasibly become the #1-contender for the top strawweight in the world, Alex Silva’s ONE belt. And he’d become the top strawweight in the world (a title that holds more than enough prestige to be at least a top-20 pound-for-pound fighter, if not top-15). And if the Chinaman ends up using his own Wushu skills to pull off the upset, he’ll become a top-10 strawweight in the process and could only be another win or two away from his own title-shot.
So, if you love the little guys like me, this’s one you really won’t want to miss.
Here’s some stuff for a few of the other fights that interested me particularly.
Eric Kelly vs. Rafael “Indio” Nunes
Eric Kelly was the first Southeast-Asian fighter to have major success in ONE’s history. I believe he was the URCC 149 or 159-lb champion (not sure which) before he made his debut in ONE with a nice 5-0 record, the hallmark of most combat sports athletes in all parts of Asia still is the ability to have success against foreign opposition, and Kelly remains one of the best Southeast-Asian fighters to have competed in this sport in that regard. In his ONE debut, he submitted Singaporean-based American Mitch Chilson (current ONE commentator) in the first round, decisioned underrated Korean veteran Kwon Bae-Yong (who was on a three-fight winning streak going in that included submission victories over Kang Kyung-Ho and Honorio Banario, the latter of which took less than a minute, and beat Michihiro Omigawa afterwards), and knocked out American legend Jens Pulver with a round kick to the body after exiting the clinch (Pulver was game that night, too.)
He was matched up with Honorio Banario for the inaugural featherweight title in ONE-- the favorite to win it-- and was upset by a game Honorio Banario, who’d used a stick-and-move strategy to outstrike his opponent and eventually damage Kelly’s eye. Eric rebounded with two wins, though, one of them a Fight of the Year contender against Rob Lisita, where Kelly persevered against the surging, explosive Australian fighter (he was on a four-fight winning streak, including being the first guy to ever submit the former #1 featherweight in the world Lion Takeshi, and avenging a loss in his ONE debut with a brutal 30-second knockout of Yusuke Kawanago) and got a come-from-behind submission in the second round.
Kelly’s troubles began afterwards, as a title-fight with Koji Oishi was canceled as a cut over Kelly’s eye that he’d sustained in the Lisita fight hadn’t healed yet (the title-fight was a month-and-a-half later), and a fight with the newly-crowned champion Narantungalag Jadambaa was canceled when Kelly had some contractual disputes over his payment with ONE.
In his return, 15 months after defeating Lisita, Kelly decided to try and fight out his ONE contract and in the first fight, defeated Japanese wrestling champion Hiroshige Tanaka via decision. It was a controversial decision, as a lot of people feel that Tanaka’s wrestling control was enough to win the fight, but ONE scores damage over control, and Kelly had done more damage just by landing backward elbows to Tanaka’s reverse-bear-hug position than Tanaka had done.
Kelly has since gone on a three-fight skid, however, as he’s been finished in succession by Ev Ting, Narantungalag Jadambaa and Kotetsu Boku. The Jadambaa loss was the only one that was one-sided, as Kelly survived through adversity and did a lot of his own damage in the fights with Ting and Boku despite losing in the end.
An aggressive, well-rounded fighter, Eric Kelly is truly well-rounded in every respect of his game. He’s strong but not overwhelmingly strong, he’s fast but not lightning fast, hits hard but not out-cold hard, he has solid striking thanks to his brief time in the Philippines National Wushu team, and he has an extremely solid grappling game that not only keeps him safe against high-level wrestlers, but can let him overcome fighters with strong defensive wrestling. What really separates him from just any other well-rounded fighter, though, is his heart and his never-say-die attitude. That’s been the one thing that’s prevailed in his career more than anything else. Even in defeat, he shows the kind of no-quit, I’m-not-gonna-give-up attitude that wins over fans despite adding a red mark to his record.
He also trains himself, which’s pretty interesting.
It says something very interesting about the character of the person who’s able to legitimately do that and push themselves to their breaking point, I think.
He’s looking to break his three-fight skid against the first Brazilian of his career in Rafael “Indio” Nunes.
Rafael Indio-- as, according to his Youtube presence, he prefers to be known by (“Rafael Indio“ is the only way to find his fights, as Rafael Nunes only comes up with the Koji Ando fight)-- is a 30-year old Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt who holds a very solid 10-1 record with 9 finishes in a row, the lone decision being in his pro debut and, interestingly, two of those finishes being Anaconda chokes. You just don’t really see chokes of that sort so often early in a fighter’s career; that says something about his submission skills. And he has two by way of “TKO (retirement)”.
After winning the Premier FC lightweight title-- a fairly good title in Brazil at the time-- and showing the kind of skills and style that would lead to a good signing, ONE offered him a contract and he accepted. Things went from bad-to-worse after that, though. Losing via submission in 90 seconds (which’s particularly embarrassing beyond just the fact that you lost, considering he’s a submission grappler) to Koji Ando, his grandfather died, then he was then kept on the shelf for a little while, and when he was offered another fight about 8 months later, he got injured shortly afterwards and was forced out of the bout and out of training.
Then when he could train again he signed a fight with another organization without ONE giving him permission to, so he couldn’t fight.
Then he got injured again, and when ONE gave him another fight, he got Dengue fever and was forced out of the bout.
He started having second thoughts about the sport and thought about retiring, but he’s kept himself busy over the past year or so, competing in Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai and Boxing until ONE gives him a fight, and they finally have, with their packed 2018 schedule needing all the fighters they can get.
A grappler with a good-but-basic striking game, the thing that really interests me about Indio is the similarities in style he has to the great Shinya Aoki. In a lot of ways, he’s basically like a faster-but-weaker and better-striking-but-worse-grappling version of Aoki. That might sound like a lot of ways to be different from somebody, but the little ways they actually work the specific dynamics of their styles is very similar. They’re both fighters whose grappling is their greatest weapon and whose takedown games are built around the single-leg, and who have both found ways to utilize it successfully in the cage as opposed to the cage-friendly double-leg. They both prefer to use their kicks to strike rather than their hands (though Indio is better with his hands than Aoki while Shinya has more kicking versatility), and this is probably the biggest thing: the way they choose to control the clinch.
Most fighters advocate the double-underhooks/dirty-boxing form of clinchwork, as it has a solid history of success, but as Southeast-Asian kickboxing in all its forms and, most importantly, Judo have shown, there’s a lot more to effectiveness in the clinch than just that. Aoki and Indio both come from that school of thought. Rather than go for underhooks and use it to get a trip or to transition to a double-leg, they both prefer to use various other holds and positions of posture to initiate a very solid level of control in the clinch, loving the use of the overhook rather than the underhook, and using the double-leg against the clinch as a set-up to transition to a single-leg rather than a legit attempt at a takedown, and they both have idiosyncratic ways of utilizing the single-leg in the cage successfully so that it‘ll actually work. One of the best flyweights in the world in Jussier Formiga comes from this school of thought and has some of the best clinch control in the world without having to use the conventional double-underhooks/dirty-boxing strategy. As does/did flyweight great Shinichi BJ Kojima.
The winner of this fight will be in the same position on matter what: they won’t be contenders, but they’ll be in the future contention discussion and could very feasibly be only another two wins away from getting a title-eliminator, if not a title-shot. And they’re both having rough skids, so there will be extra impetus to not keep it going.
He was matched up with Honorio Banario for the inaugural featherweight title in ONE-- the favorite to win it-- and was upset by a game Honorio Banario, who’d used a stick-and-move strategy to outstrike his opponent and eventually damage Kelly’s eye. Eric rebounded with two wins, though, one of them a Fight of the Year contender against Rob Lisita, where Kelly persevered against the surging, explosive Australian fighter (he was on a four-fight winning streak, including being the first guy to ever submit the former #1 featherweight in the world Lion Takeshi, and avenging a loss in his ONE debut with a brutal 30-second knockout of Yusuke Kawanago) and got a come-from-behind submission in the second round.
Kelly’s troubles began afterwards, as a title-fight with Koji Oishi was canceled as a cut over Kelly’s eye that he’d sustained in the Lisita fight hadn’t healed yet (the title-fight was a month-and-a-half later), and a fight with the newly-crowned champion Narantungalag Jadambaa was canceled when Kelly had some contractual disputes over his payment with ONE.
In his return, 15 months after defeating Lisita, Kelly decided to try and fight out his ONE contract and in the first fight, defeated Japanese wrestling champion Hiroshige Tanaka via decision. It was a controversial decision, as a lot of people feel that Tanaka’s wrestling control was enough to win the fight, but ONE scores damage over control, and Kelly had done more damage just by landing backward elbows to Tanaka’s reverse-bear-hug position than Tanaka had done.
Kelly has since gone on a three-fight skid, however, as he’s been finished in succession by Ev Ting, Narantungalag Jadambaa and Kotetsu Boku. The Jadambaa loss was the only one that was one-sided, as Kelly survived through adversity and did a lot of his own damage in the fights with Ting and Boku despite losing in the end.
An aggressive, well-rounded fighter, Eric Kelly is truly well-rounded in every respect of his game. He’s strong but not overwhelmingly strong, he’s fast but not lightning fast, hits hard but not out-cold hard, he has solid striking thanks to his brief time in the Philippines National Wushu team, and he has an extremely solid grappling game that not only keeps him safe against high-level wrestlers, but can let him overcome fighters with strong defensive wrestling. What really separates him from just any other well-rounded fighter, though, is his heart and his never-say-die attitude. That’s been the one thing that’s prevailed in his career more than anything else. Even in defeat, he shows the kind of no-quit, I’m-not-gonna-give-up attitude that wins over fans despite adding a red mark to his record.
He also trains himself, which’s pretty interesting.
The downsides to not having a coach are obvious, but it takes a certain kind of person to pull it off and make it work. They typically do it because they have some kind of a vague vision of how their style works and haven’t really been able to find a really understanding coach who’ll try to help them improve upon it rather than “fix it”, so training themselves is the preferable option. That’s not to say they don’t have specific coaches to help teach them striking and grappling, like any fighter, or that they don’t have training partners, or even people to help them analyze their opponents. But it’s just not one singular guy telling them what to do and how to do it.
The great Miguel Torres was a proponent of this kind of training philosophy-- after Carlson Gracie, his greatest teacher that he still tells stories of today, died, he wasn’t really able to find anyone else who could teach him entirely like Carlson could, and the lessons that Carlson gave him had already sunk in. So he was able to train himself and he had specific guys teach him, and he was motivated enough to be able to push himself to that level that you typically need someone else to push you to. Really, as long as you’re not insane with whatever vision you have and you have the motivation, there’s nothing wrong with not having a head coach. It’s not like it’ll set you back compared to wherever you would‘ve been otherwise; you just need the motivation and the not-insane-vision.
A couple of other guys I can think of who fit this mold are Roger Huerta over the last couple years (and he’s on his first winning streak since 2007, so I think it shows it’s working) and Mike Bronzoulis after his rough three-fight skid in 2014, then he started training himself and just going to different gyms individually and he ended up improving significantly and won the Legacy FC title. Lightweight greats Takanori Gomi and Tatsuya Kawajiri since opening their own dojos RSCL and T-Blood, respectively (the Japanese have such cooler names for their gyms than anyone else does; everyone else just says “X’s MMA & Fitness trademark” or “X Fight Team copyright“ or “X Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/Muay Thai/Boxing/whatever the fuck.biz“). Matt Hughes at the end of his career, too. His chin had failed him by then, but he’d made some nice improvements in his game to coincide with it.
The great Miguel Torres was a proponent of this kind of training philosophy-- after Carlson Gracie, his greatest teacher that he still tells stories of today, died, he wasn’t really able to find anyone else who could teach him entirely like Carlson could, and the lessons that Carlson gave him had already sunk in. So he was able to train himself and he had specific guys teach him, and he was motivated enough to be able to push himself to that level that you typically need someone else to push you to. Really, as long as you’re not insane with whatever vision you have and you have the motivation, there’s nothing wrong with not having a head coach. It’s not like it’ll set you back compared to wherever you would‘ve been otherwise; you just need the motivation and the not-insane-vision.
A couple of other guys I can think of who fit this mold are Roger Huerta over the last couple years (and he’s on his first winning streak since 2007, so I think it shows it’s working) and Mike Bronzoulis after his rough three-fight skid in 2014, then he started training himself and just going to different gyms individually and he ended up improving significantly and won the Legacy FC title. Lightweight greats Takanori Gomi and Tatsuya Kawajiri since opening their own dojos RSCL and T-Blood, respectively (the Japanese have such cooler names for their gyms than anyone else does; everyone else just says “X’s MMA & Fitness trademark” or “X Fight Team copyright“ or “X Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/Muay Thai/Boxing/whatever the fuck.biz“). Matt Hughes at the end of his career, too. His chin had failed him by then, but he’d made some nice improvements in his game to coincide with it.
He’s looking to break his three-fight skid against the first Brazilian of his career in Rafael “Indio” Nunes.
Rafael Indio-- as, according to his Youtube presence, he prefers to be known by (“Rafael Indio“ is the only way to find his fights, as Rafael Nunes only comes up with the Koji Ando fight)-- is a 30-year old Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt who holds a very solid 10-1 record with 9 finishes in a row, the lone decision being in his pro debut and, interestingly, two of those finishes being Anaconda chokes. You just don’t really see chokes of that sort so often early in a fighter’s career; that says something about his submission skills. And he has two by way of “TKO (retirement)”.
After winning the Premier FC lightweight title-- a fairly good title in Brazil at the time-- and showing the kind of skills and style that would lead to a good signing, ONE offered him a contract and he accepted. Things went from bad-to-worse after that, though. Losing via submission in 90 seconds (which’s particularly embarrassing beyond just the fact that you lost, considering he’s a submission grappler) to Koji Ando, his grandfather died, then he was then kept on the shelf for a little while, and when he was offered another fight about 8 months later, he got injured shortly afterwards and was forced out of the bout and out of training.
Then when he could train again he signed a fight with another organization without ONE giving him permission to, so he couldn’t fight.
Then he got injured again, and when ONE gave him another fight, he got Dengue fever and was forced out of the bout.
He started having second thoughts about the sport and thought about retiring, but he’s kept himself busy over the past year or so, competing in Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai and Boxing until ONE gives him a fight, and they finally have, with their packed 2018 schedule needing all the fighters they can get.
A grappler with a good-but-basic striking game, the thing that really interests me about Indio is the similarities in style he has to the great Shinya Aoki. In a lot of ways, he’s basically like a faster-but-weaker and better-striking-but-worse-grappling version of Aoki. That might sound like a lot of ways to be different from somebody, but the little ways they actually work the specific dynamics of their styles is very similar. They’re both fighters whose grappling is their greatest weapon and whose takedown games are built around the single-leg, and who have both found ways to utilize it successfully in the cage as opposed to the cage-friendly double-leg. They both prefer to use their kicks to strike rather than their hands (though Indio is better with his hands than Aoki while Shinya has more kicking versatility), and this is probably the biggest thing: the way they choose to control the clinch.
Most fighters advocate the double-underhooks/dirty-boxing form of clinchwork, as it has a solid history of success, but as Southeast-Asian kickboxing in all its forms and, most importantly, Judo have shown, there’s a lot more to effectiveness in the clinch than just that. Aoki and Indio both come from that school of thought. Rather than go for underhooks and use it to get a trip or to transition to a double-leg, they both prefer to use various other holds and positions of posture to initiate a very solid level of control in the clinch, loving the use of the overhook rather than the underhook, and using the double-leg against the clinch as a set-up to transition to a single-leg rather than a legit attempt at a takedown, and they both have idiosyncratic ways of utilizing the single-leg in the cage successfully so that it‘ll actually work. One of the best flyweights in the world in Jussier Formiga comes from this school of thought and has some of the best clinch control in the world without having to use the conventional double-underhooks/dirty-boxing strategy. As does/did flyweight great Shinichi BJ Kojima.
The winner of this fight will be in the same position on matter what: they won’t be contenders, but they’ll be in the future contention discussion and could very feasibly be only another two wins away from getting a title-eliminator, if not a title-shot. And they’re both having rough skids, so there will be extra impetus to not keep it going.
“The Southern Eagle” Ma Hao Bin vs. Sotir Kichukov
One of the best grass-roots prospects that ONE has developed is the Chinese wrestling champion “The Southern Eagle” Ma Hao Bin. Winning his [at least official-- he may have had some unsanctioned fights] debut fights in the ONE Changsa flyweight tournament, he impressed by getting two guillotine-choke submissions in a combined time of 90 seconds. He faced adversity afterwards as he lost his first fight a few months later, losing via submission to Tajikstani fighter Umidjon Musayev. He’s won 7 fights in a row since then, though, including 3 in ONE, leading to a solid 5-0 record in the organization (three of those wins being via guillotine). He’s defeated the unofficial champion of the ONE Cambodia tournament in Chan Rothana, 4-2 musclebound, well-rounded Chinese fighter “The Wolf of the Grasslands” Hexi Getu, and Filipino veteran Eugene Toquero.
Aside from his guillotine choke, Hao Bin’s ever-adapting wrestling skills and the improvement curve in his striking have been impressive. Living in China, he hasn’t gotten the striking course that comes in the conventional wrestler’s-striking form of learning boxing and how to throw a big right hand, and has instead learned the art of kickboxing, stylistically inspired by traditional Chinese martial arts striking styles. So you have a lot of kicks off his lead leg, a lack of fear to throw big round kicks, and even front-kicks in addition to some textbook boxing skills. It takes a little while longer to get good when you have to learn all that stuff, but it’s actually a blessing in disguise as he’s going to be a much more skilled striker in the end than a lot of those other fighters will be.
He’s getting the biggest test of his career in 13-6 Vietnam-based Bulgarian Sotir Kichukov.
A kid who lacked direction in his life, the martial arts gave Sotir Kichukov a path to follow when he was a teenager. Starting out with kickboxing, he won some fights, became a Bulgarian champion apparently, and eventually transitioned to shootfighting. After getting an opportunity to teach and train in Vietnam, he moved there and became one of the top trainers in Ho Chi Minh City at the Saigon Sports Club, which‘s how ONE noticed him.
An aggressive fighter, though his ground game leaves something to be desired, as his losses have a trend to be due to a disparity in grappling skill (though that‘s not to say he‘s a bad grappler, as 8 of his 13 wins have been via submission), his striking is very impressive, fast and crisp. And at flyweight, at 5’7 he’s tall for the division and has a very long reach, which is an advantage given his striking-base. Though he’s on a four-fight losing streak, don’t let that mislead you: Kichukov is completely capable of upsetting Hao Bin. We saw it just last month with Rasul Yakhyaev-- another fighter who was on a bad skid that upset a surging Asian.
Aside from his guillotine choke, Hao Bin’s ever-adapting wrestling skills and the improvement curve in his striking have been impressive. Living in China, he hasn’t gotten the striking course that comes in the conventional wrestler’s-striking form of learning boxing and how to throw a big right hand, and has instead learned the art of kickboxing, stylistically inspired by traditional Chinese martial arts striking styles. So you have a lot of kicks off his lead leg, a lack of fear to throw big round kicks, and even front-kicks in addition to some textbook boxing skills. It takes a little while longer to get good when you have to learn all that stuff, but it’s actually a blessing in disguise as he’s going to be a much more skilled striker in the end than a lot of those other fighters will be.
He’s getting the biggest test of his career in 13-6 Vietnam-based Bulgarian Sotir Kichukov.
A kid who lacked direction in his life, the martial arts gave Sotir Kichukov a path to follow when he was a teenager. Starting out with kickboxing, he won some fights, became a Bulgarian champion apparently, and eventually transitioned to shootfighting. After getting an opportunity to teach and train in Vietnam, he moved there and became one of the top trainers in Ho Chi Minh City at the Saigon Sports Club, which‘s how ONE noticed him.
An aggressive fighter, though his ground game leaves something to be desired, as his losses have a trend to be due to a disparity in grappling skill (though that‘s not to say he‘s a bad grappler, as 8 of his 13 wins have been via submission), his striking is very impressive, fast and crisp. And at flyweight, at 5’7 he’s tall for the division and has a very long reach, which is an advantage given his striking-base. Though he’s on a four-fight losing streak, don’t let that mislead you: Kichukov is completely capable of upsetting Hao Bin. We saw it just last month with Rasul Yakhyaev-- another fighter who was on a bad skid that upset a surging Asian.
Edward Kelly vs. Meas Meu
The younger brother of the eldest Kelly, Edward Kelly followed his brother's footsteps in learning the martial arts and following the discipline of improving yourself every day. He joined the National Wushu Team, much like his brother, but stayed with it and, as a result, has much more crisp striking than his older brother, along with, coincidentally, his brother's same knack for locking in hookless rear-chokes.
A solid 5-0 fighter when he signed with ONE in 2014, he was matched up with now-former ONE and EVOLVE fighter and former featherweight contender Herbert "The Blaze" Burns in Burns' second pro fight (his 1st in ONE). After getting submitted in under a minute by the high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and competitor, Kelly was matched up with Malaysian-Kiwi current lightweight contender Ev Ting and got knocked out with a solid Ting head-kick in the second round after narrowly getting outstruck throughout the rest of the fight (a testament to Kelly's striking skills to keep it competitive with someone like Ev).
Next, he got the first victory of his ONE career against then-4-0 fellow-Filipino and former-pro boxer Jimmy Yabo, whom he outstruck using his Wushu for 3 minutes before getting a takedown and quickly advancing to the back of his more-grappling-inexperienced opponent and submitting him.
He lost against current two-divisional ONE champion Martin Nguyen after a Nguyen elbow from top-position opened up a cut over Kelly's eye and after Kelly escaped from the bottom and was back to striking, the doctor was called over and halted the bout.
The really interesting thing with Edward, though, was the improvement curve he went on after the Nguyen fight. The fight was fairly competitive, despite Nguyen coming out ahead, before the cut ended the bout, so the curve may have started before, but either way it was proven afterwards. In one of the biggest upsets in ONE in 2016, he overcame significant adversity and showed not only the famous Kelly heart, but the Filipino scrappiness that's come to be associated with the group in MMA and defended several extremely tight choke attempts from the then-8-0 BRACE bantamweight champion Jordan Lucas (a large favorite), and in a stunning comeback, submitted the superior grappler with his own rear-choke (without any hooks, either) to emerge immediately as a darkhorse contender in the featherweight division.
Kelly's improvement curve continued, as he fought former lightweight (and gigantic featherweight) Vincent Latoel and showed his striking skills as, in a very entertaining striking match, he knocked out the deceptively-good Dutch striker with a counter 3-2 that left the Dutch-Indonesian out cold.
He then showcased his wrestling skills when he repeatedly took down- and controlled another skilled Indonesian striker in bantamweight-turned-featherweight (before going back down to bantamweight-- he didn't look really that undersized at featherweight, though, which says something in ONE) Sunoto Peringkat, before he finished him with strikes from the top in the third round.
Unfortunately, Kelly's Filipino roots betrayed him as, in his next fight, he was matched up with American wrestler Emilio Urrutia (who's fighting on this card) and was controlled from the top position in a pretty underwhelming match, and ultimately lost a unanimous decision, his impressive three-fight streak halted. Though Kelly's still a contender in ONE, he'll have to make sure he doesn't lose step when he fights Meas Meu.
A survivor of the tragedy that was the fall of the Cambodian MMA sphere, Meas Meu is a Kun Khmer veteran and, with a solid 6-0 record (5 finishes), is arguably the top Cambodian fighter in the MMA world. The thing that's really interesting about him, though, is his grappling skill, considering his racial handicap in that regard. 4 of his 5 finishes have come via submission, and the one TKO was from a really hard right-hand he landed on top from guard. Two of those submission wins were come-from-behind submissions against guys who looked to have superior wrestling, too, as they were controlling him pretty handily for the majority of the preceding two rounds of both fights. Just the fact that he's got good grappling skill puts him a head of everyone else from his country and leaves him as likely to be the first high-level shootfighter to emerge from Cambodia.
Though Edward Kelly's experience will probably lead him to victory, don't count out Meas Meu. He's shown before that he has the skills to mount a comeback if you're hoping to forward a ground assault at him, and should that be Kelly's plan, he can counter it. And if Kelly tries to strike with him, it will be a classic "highly-skilled Wushu practitioner vs. highly-skilled Southeast-Asian Kickboxing (Kun Khmer in this case) practitioner" matchup that ONE has pretty much single-handedly made a thing. ONE's the only place in the world you can still legitimately see an MMA match between two different styles beyond "Alright, guys, we have a Muay Thai vs. boxing matchup, even though neither of these guys ever competed in either of the sports beyond maybe a couple amateur matches, and then we have a matchup between a high-level wrestler and a high-level Jiu-Jitsu competitor-- how original!" Ganruyujima does that, but it's not really shootfighting, so it's not quite the same, even though it's still really cool.
The point is, on the feet, it's a close fight.
A solid 5-0 fighter when he signed with ONE in 2014, he was matched up with now-former ONE and EVOLVE fighter and former featherweight contender Herbert "The Blaze" Burns in Burns' second pro fight (his 1st in ONE). After getting submitted in under a minute by the high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and competitor, Kelly was matched up with Malaysian-Kiwi current lightweight contender Ev Ting and got knocked out with a solid Ting head-kick in the second round after narrowly getting outstruck throughout the rest of the fight (a testament to Kelly's striking skills to keep it competitive with someone like Ev).
Next, he got the first victory of his ONE career against then-4-0 fellow-Filipino and former-pro boxer Jimmy Yabo, whom he outstruck using his Wushu for 3 minutes before getting a takedown and quickly advancing to the back of his more-grappling-inexperienced opponent and submitting him.
He lost against current two-divisional ONE champion Martin Nguyen after a Nguyen elbow from top-position opened up a cut over Kelly's eye and after Kelly escaped from the bottom and was back to striking, the doctor was called over and halted the bout.
The really interesting thing with Edward, though, was the improvement curve he went on after the Nguyen fight. The fight was fairly competitive, despite Nguyen coming out ahead, before the cut ended the bout, so the curve may have started before, but either way it was proven afterwards. In one of the biggest upsets in ONE in 2016, he overcame significant adversity and showed not only the famous Kelly heart, but the Filipino scrappiness that's come to be associated with the group in MMA and defended several extremely tight choke attempts from the then-8-0 BRACE bantamweight champion Jordan Lucas (a large favorite), and in a stunning comeback, submitted the superior grappler with his own rear-choke (without any hooks, either) to emerge immediately as a darkhorse contender in the featherweight division.
Kelly's improvement curve continued, as he fought former lightweight (and gigantic featherweight) Vincent Latoel and showed his striking skills as, in a very entertaining striking match, he knocked out the deceptively-good Dutch striker with a counter 3-2 that left the Dutch-Indonesian out cold.
He then showcased his wrestling skills when he repeatedly took down- and controlled another skilled Indonesian striker in bantamweight-turned-featherweight (before going back down to bantamweight-- he didn't look really that undersized at featherweight, though, which says something in ONE) Sunoto Peringkat, before he finished him with strikes from the top in the third round.
Unfortunately, Kelly's Filipino roots betrayed him as, in his next fight, he was matched up with American wrestler Emilio Urrutia (who's fighting on this card) and was controlled from the top position in a pretty underwhelming match, and ultimately lost a unanimous decision, his impressive three-fight streak halted. Though Kelly's still a contender in ONE, he'll have to make sure he doesn't lose step when he fights Meas Meu.
A survivor of the tragedy that was the fall of the Cambodian MMA sphere, Meas Meu is a Kun Khmer veteran and, with a solid 6-0 record (5 finishes), is arguably the top Cambodian fighter in the MMA world. The thing that's really interesting about him, though, is his grappling skill, considering his racial handicap in that regard. 4 of his 5 finishes have come via submission, and the one TKO was from a really hard right-hand he landed on top from guard. Two of those submission wins were come-from-behind submissions against guys who looked to have superior wrestling, too, as they were controlling him pretty handily for the majority of the preceding two rounds of both fights. Just the fact that he's got good grappling skill puts him a head of everyone else from his country and leaves him as likely to be the first high-level shootfighter to emerge from Cambodia.
Though Edward Kelly's experience will probably lead him to victory, don't count out Meas Meu. He's shown before that he has the skills to mount a comeback if you're hoping to forward a ground assault at him, and should that be Kelly's plan, he can counter it. And if Kelly tries to strike with him, it will be a classic "highly-skilled Wushu practitioner vs. highly-skilled Southeast-Asian Kickboxing (Kun Khmer in this case) practitioner" matchup that ONE has pretty much single-handedly made a thing. ONE's the only place in the world you can still legitimately see an MMA match between two different styles beyond "Alright, guys, we have a Muay Thai vs. boxing matchup, even though neither of these guys ever competed in either of the sports beyond maybe a couple amateur matches, and then we have a matchup between a high-level wrestler and a high-level Jiu-Jitsu competitor-- how original!" Ganruyujima does that, but it's not really shootfighting, so it's not quite the same, even though it's still really cool.
The point is, on the feet, it's a close fight.
I might do the Rajinder and Suzuki-Yago fights if I feel up to it.
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