Joshua Pacio celebrates after successfully defending his ONE strawweight world title against Alex Silva in the main event of ONE: Fire & Fury on Friday, January 31, 2020, at Mall of Asia Arena. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Team Lakay’s top strawweights are keeping their tabs on the bout between former champion Alex Silva and Hiroba Minowa in ONE: Fists of Fury.
The telecast of the event is set for March 19 after it was already previously recorded at Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Pacio, the current ONE Championship 125-pound champion, beat Silva in his last title defense on January 31, 2020 while Adiwang lost a controversial split decision bout to Minowa on October 30.
Both Silva and Minowa have World titles under their names with the latter once Shooto’s strawweight World champion.
Pacio and Adivano, however, picked Silva to come out the victor in the coming fight.
“I’m going with Alex Silva in this one, because he has that championship experience. That can’t be overlooked. He’s been at the top and he knows what it takes to become a world champion,” said Adiwang.
“He [Silva] also has a great camp at Evolve and they aren’t affected too much by COVID-19. They still have access to their facilities and quality training partners,” added Adiwang.
Pacio, meanwhile, believes that Silva’s experience and submission skills would be the edge in the bout.
Silva (9-5) is already 38-years-old but is still at the top of the strawweights as the no.5 contender.
The Brazilian’s nine wins has only one decision and eight of which were submissions while Minowa (12-2) is 19 years the junior of Silva but he’s already amassed three knockouts and also eight submissions.
“I’ve shared the Circle with Alex Silva, so I know how good he is. He’s a great grappler, and so is Minowa. They are two of the best grapplers in the division. Honestly, it’s a hard one to predict. But I think Alex takes this one, because he has the experience. I think he will have the edge in this fight,” said Pacio.
“Alex is very dangerous with his arm locks and knee bars. If you get caught, there’s no way out. You’re going to tap. At the same time, Minowa is good with his control. He’s very fluid in side mount, full mount, and even in the guard. It could go down to the wire,” the current champion added.