Former PXC Bantamweight Champion Kyle Aguon has grinded out his opponents ever since his professional MMA debut with the Guam-based promotion.
Aguon has compiled a 9-4 record with majority of his wins coming by way of unanimous decision. Moreover, the Guamanian wrestler improved his striking ever since winning PXC gold.
Coming into last Saturday’s PXC 51 card, Aguon was the overwhelming favorite in the sportsbooks against Korean Top Team’s Kwan Ho Kwak. Only a few believed that Kwak can keep up with the slow and torturous wrestling of Aguon.
“All the fighters I faced before have said the same thing but everyone fell to me via KO. This fight wouldn’t be any different,” Kwan said in Korean during the press conference. But still, only a few believed that he could even if he came into the bout as an undefeated prospect.
The underdog, who is also the reigning Top FC Bantamweight Champion, displayed great variance in his striking that ultimately destroyed the game plan of Aguon. The Korean threw various combinations of stinging jabs and hard kicks that helped in keeping distance against the lanky Guamanian. He was then able to combine those strikes with spinning back kicks, front kicks, and wild haymakers that confounded the PXC champion.
As the minutes went by, so did the allegiance of the audience in attendance. The crowd “ooh”-ed with the excellent sprawls that negated his opponent’s bread and butter, they “awe’d” with every connection he made. At the end of 25 minutes of action, everyone in the audience knew who Kwan Ho Kwak was.
“The gameplan went pretty well. My plan was to knock him out, to keep him standing and use a little more of defensive wrestling than offensive wrestling and pretty much just get him to take bad shots and tire him out and it worked,” the newly crowned PXC bantamweight champion said after the bout.
The confidence he exuded prior to the bout was a result of his strict accordance to the game plan according to him. “We practiced establishing the rhythm; obviously Aguon was the longer fighter but we felt that I was the faster fighter and it turned out to be true,” he shared. “We wanted to counter his length with our speed and in terms of landing those kicks, it’s just the matter of setting the pace in order to get those kicks in.”
“I wouldn’t have thrown kicks had been moving me backwards but we were pushing the pace so we felt those kicks were okay to go with.”
Now that the Korean Top Team prospect gaining possession of two belts everyone knows who he is and now has a huge target on his back. Knowing this, Kwak vows to be a fighting champion and continue to stay hungry. “I have two belts to defend now, so there’s a lot of people lining up to knock on my door but I never look down,” he said. “I always look to people who I think are better than me. The PXC and TOP FC will work itself out in terms of challengers. I’m looking forward for the next big thing.”
