Team Lakay basking in continued surge
WITH the success it has been experiencing of late in the international mixed martial arts scene, particularly in ONE Championship, Team Lakay is basking in it while at the same time looking at it as a challenge.
In last Friday’s ONE event at the Mall of Asia Arena, Baguio pride Team Lakay saw three of its fighters out of five it fielded win against their respective opponents in convincing fashion.
It was down from the 5-of-5 success rate it had the last time Asia’s largest MMA organization was here in April but nonetheless a positive outcome for the team, one of the known MMA groups in the country.
“We have gone through a lot, from zero wins to 100% success rate. This time we went three out of five. Our fighters have been competing and it is showing in the results we have had in the last couple of years. It is something that we look at positively, seeing how we are progressing,” said Team Lakay coach Mark Sanglao at the post-ONE event press conference last Friday.
One good example of that, the coach said, was the title conquest of Team Lakay stalwart Eduard “Landslide” Folayang, who seized the ONE lightweight title from Japanese legend Shinya Aoki by technical knockout in the third round.
“We saw how far our fighters have come in the win of Eduard,” said Mr. Sanglao, highlighting how Mr. Folayang went through all the struggles of training and the defeats to get to where he is now.
And it is something that he hopes the rest of the fighters in Team Lakay would emulate.
“The fighters should learn in each of the experiences they go through. They have to take all the lessons from the exposure they get and apply them in training and in fights,” he said.
With the success they have been getting, Mr. Sanglao said the challenge now for them is sustaining and building on it, through continuous work on their fighters’ skills.
“The thing about us in Team Lakay is we recognize our shortcomings and try to work on them,” Mr. Sanglao said.
“Before we knew our ground game was not polished and we worked on it and right now I think we are far better in it. We work as a team, trying to help each other to be wellrounded fighters. Hopefully next year we get to produce more champions,” he added.
Victorious Team Lakay fighters last Friday at “ONE: Age of Domination” were lightweight Honorio “The Rock” Banario, who won over Rajinder Singh Meena of India by submission (armbar) in the first round; featherweight Edward “The Ferocious” Kelly, a winner by TKO (strikes) in the third round over Indonesian Sunoto; and flyweight Danny Kingad, who defeated compatriot Eugene Toquero by submission (armbar) in the opening round.
Not so lucky from Team Lakay were bantamweight Geje “Gravity” Eustaquio, losing by submission (rear-naked choke) in the first round to Finn Toni Tauru, and women’s atomweight April Osenio, who fell to Taiwanese Jenny Huang by submission (gogoplata) in the second round. —