ONE Championship’s third Manila show for the year was stacked to the core.
Besides the four homegrown talents headlining the card, three decorated grapplers were also fighting during Reign of Kings – namely Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts Renzo Gracie, Shinya Aoki, and Garry Tonon.
Of course, the Filipinos did not allow themselves to be left behind when it came to showcasing what they can bring to the table in terms of submission skills.
In the third bout of the evening, Joshua Pacio finished off previously-unbeaten Thai Pongsiri Mitsatit with a rare submission move, a coplock.
Needing an impressive win, as fellow strawweight contender Rene Catalan racked up his fifth straight win early in the night, the 22-year-old Lakay fighter immediately took Mitsatit down. After a couple of switches, he was able to gain top position and rain down punches.
Mitsatit tried to turtle up to avoid the shots, but it only exposed his back. Instead of locking a rear naked choke, Pacio chose to trap his opponent’s left arm, locking his forearm then torquing it to force a tap-out.
“My game plan is really to get the rear naked choke,” recalled Pacio, who is now 12-2 in his prizefighting career. “That submission that I did a while ago, I tried it once in training, and tonight I’m so happy that I showcased it on the international stage.
“It came from that Baguio Jiu-jitsu.“
During their early days, Team Lakay received criticism for the lack of ground game of boys from Baguio. But as time went on, the team embraced numerous other arts to integrate with their wushu base. This resulted in Lakay’s running joke of having their own discipline of jiu-jitsu – Baguio Jiu-jitsu.
“Of course, we learned from our past. ‘Yung mga criticism na kinain namin noon, hindi namin tinake as a negative, but we take it as a positive thing, and we worked our ass off,” admitted Eduard Folayang.
“Siyempre kaya may Baguio Jiu-Jitsu ngayon, kasi that’s how we do it.”
And it wouldn’t come as a surprise that if someday members of Team Lakay will actively participate in the BJJ circuit.
