MANILA, Philippines—Joshua Pacio is off to defend his title once more as he takes on Brazil’s Alex Silva in the main event ONE: Fire and Fury in the promotion’s second card of 2020.
Fresh from a dominant submission win over Rene Catalan, the World strawweight champion is on his third title defense since first winning the belt against Yoshitaka Naito in September of 2918.
Pacio (15-3), however, relinquished the title four months later to Yosuke Saruta but won it back from his tormentor in April of 2019 via fourth-round knockout.
Silva (9-4), a former strawweight champion, had racked up two straight wins to get back to the title picture after a horrible 2018 and early 2019.
The 37-year-old Brazilian, who is 16 years the senior of Pacio, scored two second-round submission victories against Stefer Rahardian and Xuewen Peng.
Also in the card are Pacio’s Team Lakay teammates Eduard Folayang, Danny Kingad, Lito Adiwang, and Gina Iniong.
Jomary Torres, a part of the Catalan Fighting System, is also taking on former World title challenger Jenny Huang of Taiwan that night.
Folayang (22-8), a former two-time ONE World lightweight champion, looks to get his second straight win when he faces Pakistan’s Ahmed Mujtaba (7-2).
Danny Kingad (13-2), meanwhile, hopes to get back into winning ways against China’s Xie Wei (5-2), who has been tearing up the competition and undefeated in his past five bouts.
Lito Adiwang (10-2) tries to bump his winning streak to seven bouts when he faces Pongisir Mitsatit (10-4), who has been on a slump after losing his past two matches.
Gina Iniong (8-4) has her schedule full when she returns to the ONE cage to take on Inda’s Asha Roka (4-1)
Iniong recently won the gold medal in the women’s -55 kilogram division in the kickboxing competition in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games and will look to tack her second straight in ONE Championship.