- 'The Passion' retains strawweight title with split decision against Alex Silva
- Filipino MMA stable go 4-1 in Manila as Eduard Folayang suffers shock loss
There was a brief moment of reflection in the wild aftermath of Joshua "The Passion" Pacio's defence of his One Championship world strawweight title.
For much of the post-bout press conference late on Friday night, the 24-year-old (17-3) Filipino fighter had been grinning widely. He'd shared jokes with the fellow Team Lakay fighters who surrounded him on the podium, he made the most of the fact that he'd just survived a thorough examination inside the cage by former champ Alex "Little Rock" Silva (9-5) only to emerge relatively unscathed and with a split decision.
But as the Baguio City outfit's leader Mark Sangiao took a question from the press, Pacio seemed to take a deep breath as he reached for the shiny title belt on the table in front of him. He then gave the belt a quick rub and looked off into the distance, smiling to himself.
The sense was that the true enormity of this occasion had not been lost on Pacio. The facts are he had not only laid firmly to rest the notion that Team Lakay fighters can't grapple, given the way he dealt with every trick the third-degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt tried to pull. He'd also helped breathe life fully back into his team's fortunes following a year when no less than three of their fighters had lost their titles.
"I still feel I need to work more," Pacio said. "I didn't get the finish that I expected so I have to work more on my ground game, learn to follow up on my striking. I think he was waiting for me to make a mistake but I wasn't going to do that."
When Pacio one day sits back and reflects on his career, he might just realise that January 31, 2020, was the making of the man. Sangiao hinted the thought had already crossed his mind, saying the world had seen a "different" Pacio.
"Silva is a world BJJ champion and all his attempts, Joshua managed to escape," Sangiao said. "We can see a lot of improvement and he even attempted a foot lock in the first round, one of Silva's moves, so you can see how much he is improving. With our fighters we want to expose them to pressure, and tonight we saw how they can perform."
That there were some gathered in the Mall of Asia Arena who thought the 37-year-old Silva had done enough added to the occasion, and to the drama. Across five enthralling rounds the veteran scrapper had tried everything, getting Pacio down, running through a litany of attempted lockdowns, and even going toe-to-toe in the middle of the cage as he tried to find a way to take the decision out of the judges' hands.
But there was Pacio, somehow Shawshanking his way out of the darkness.
The Filipino has now beaten every fighter to have held the One strawweight title, after previous victories over the Japanese pair of Yoshitaka "Nobita" Naito (15-3) and Yosuke "Tobizaru No 2" Saruta (20-9-3).
"It's hard because I just fought two months ago and this was what my team and I worked on and that was our ground game," Pacio said. "For me, I'm not really impressed with my performance. I need to work on my combinations and of course my grappling skills."
So what does this all mean for One Championship and for Asian MMA?
Pacio's legend grows, for one, and Team Lakay's legend has been saved.
There was an air of anticipation lingering around the night given the Philippines' beloved fight factory had shed three of its One titles across 2019.
They had five fighters in action Friday and walked away with a 4-1 record. Two-time lightweight champ Eduard "Landslide" Folayang (22-9) felt aggrieved after the judges handed a split decision to Pieter "The Archangel" Buist (15-4). Maybe not so much when he goes over the tape. The Dutchman used a six-inch height advantage, along with pincer-like jabs and a brutal right foot, to own the distance and pick Folayang slowly apart.
Flyweight Danny "The King" Kingad (14-2) had earlier shown that he learned from the feet, arms and legs of the master. Last time out the 24-year-old had pushed the legend that is Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson (30-3-1) all the way before falling via decision.
This time it was other body parts that were the worry against Xie "The Hunter" Wei (5-3), including the Chinese fighter's head and knees, both used while pushing the rules to their extremes. Kingad took a decision that was unanimous but again seemed wafer thin. Still, he's another Team Lakay talent that is growing.
Same goes for Pacio's teammate and fellow featherweight Lito "Thunder Kid" Adiwang (11-2) who made short work of Pongsiri "The Smiling Assassin" Mitsatit (10-5) with a kimura late in the first to push his winning run to 7-0 and to sound out his intent in the division.
Also coming to the party was Gina "Conviction" Iniong (9-4), back in the cage after wushu gold at the Southeast Asian Games and up against India's game but ultimately outmanoeuvred Asha "Knockout Queen" Roka (4-2) at atomweight.
Iniong got the decision after what was a scrap but it set the Team Lakay machine in motion again. For 2020 and beyond.
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