Sityodtong: Team Lakay’s back-to-back title bouts milestone for PH MMA

SINGAPORE – Although 2016 began on a sour note with Kevin Belingon failing to capture the world bantamweight championship at the start of the year, it did not stop other homegrown talents from raising the Philippine flag in ONE Championship.

2016 saw stellar performances from Filipino fighters in ONE Championship, with Team Lakay riding high on an impressive winning streak, new faces like April Osenio and Burnard Soriano looking to establish themselves in the ranks, and prominent figures meriting title shots.

As 2016 enters its last quarter, the Philippines could have two pure Pinoy combatants as world champions by the end of the year as Team Lakay representatives Eduard Folayang and Joshua Pacio will be competing for mixed martial arts (MMA) gold.

Folayang is set to challenge ONE Championship’s lightweight kingpin Shinya Aoki on November 11 in Singapore, while Pacio will vie for the organization’s strawweight belt against Yoshitaka Naito on October 7 in Myanmar.

ONE Championship chairman Chatri Sityodtong indicated that the back-to-back world title opportunities of Folayang and Pacio already established a milestone for the Philippine MMA scene.

“I think it’s a huge moment for Filipino martial arts to have two Filipinos fighting for world titles. It just shows the power of the Filipino people. There are now two guys on the global stage, competing for world title. It’s amazing,” he told Rappler.

Sityodtong expects Folayang and Pacio to go through the eye of a needle to defeat their high-profile opponents.

“Their opponents are monsters. Shinya Aoki is a monster. Yoshitaka Naito is a monster. Definitely, Team Lakay has its hands full,” he said.

Aoki has been widely regarded as the most dominant lightweight in Asia for the better part of the last decade as he had 46 professional matches and strutted his wares in various MMA promotions such as ONE Championship, DREAM, Bellator, Strikeforce, and Shooto.

Being a champion is synonymous to the name of the 33-year-old Japanese as he has a long list of accolades in both MMA and submission wrestling.

Meanwhile, Naito is unbeaten in his 11 outings as a prizefighter and was a staple of Shooto, where he had 10 bouts in his 3-year run and once held the company’s flyweight title.

Tough tests await Folayang and Pacio, but these do not worry Sityodtong as he knows that Team Lakay head coach Mark Sangiao is keeping a keen eye in their preparation.

“Mark Sangiao is an unbelievable coach. His athletes are unbelievable,” he said of the longtime Team Lakay mentor.

Sityodtong believes that if there will be two Filipino MMA world champions before the year ends, Folayang and Pacio have the capabilities to accomplish it.

“If there’s anyone who’s going to pull it off, it will be that team. It will be Pacio and Folayang to pull it off,” he said. – Rappler.com