MMA News: Team Lakay Splits Opening Assignments At ONE X

Former BRAVE CF bantamweight champion Stephen Loman turned in a striking masterclass from start to finish, ensuring that a potential date with newly-enshrined bantamweight king John Lineker is on the horizon.

The 26-year-old from Ifugao, Philippines outclassed ex-Shooto bantamweight titleholder Shoko Sato over the course of three rounds, earning a clear-cut unanimous decision victory at ONE: Part I on Saturday, March 26.

Loman pretty much had everything his way, blasting the Japanese with shattering combinations of punches that effortlessly slipped through his opponent’s defense.

As Loman permitted his boxing to do the job for the majority of the opening salvo, the Team Lakay hard-hitter was compelled to switch things up in the second frame.

“The Sniper” changed levels and easily scooped Sato down to the canvas with an impactful double-leg takedown.

Though referee Olivier Coste saw little activity on the ground, Loman quickly established momentum as soon as he returned to his feet by bombarding Sato with boxing.

The third and final was when Loman hammered the final nail in the coffin, successfully converting another takedown attempt and persistently rattling Sato with a plethora of unforgiving strikes.

Loman pulled up his mixed martial arts record to 16-2 and extended his winning streak to 10 matches with the victory over Sato, who dropped to a 32-14-2 win-loss-draw card.

Unfortunately for Loman’s teammate Lito Adiwang (13-5-), he fell short in his bid to re-enter the winner’s circle on ONE Championship’s 10th-anniversary show as “The Thunder Kid” absorbed a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of compatriot Jeremy Miado (11-5).

Adiwang appeared to be in full control of the strawweight contest until he twisted his knee in the second round during a crucial sequence, prompting Miado to go for the kill and clinch the technical knockout.

The loss of Adiwang to Miado denied Team Lakay to start ONE X by winning two fights in a row as Eduard Folayang waits for his turn to compete later on the card.

In other fights slated on the supporting card of ONE X, the submission grappling match between middleweights Andre Galvao and two-division ONE champion Reinier de Ridder ended in a draw.

Sinsamut Klinmee of Thailand knocked out Holland's Nieky Holzken in the second round of their lightweight Muay Thai bout.

Singapore’s Amir Khan (14-8) rallied back in the last two frames of his featherweight clash against Ryogo Takahashi (14-6) of Japan, which earned him the win on two of the three judges’ scorecards.

Kang Ji Won (6-1) of South Korea sent the crowd inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium into a frenzy, finishing Englishman Paul Elliot (3-1) in just 58 seconds of their heavyweight duel.

Meanwhile, two-time atomweight title contender Mei Yamaguchi and Brazilian jiu-jitsu phenom Danielle Kelly went full 12 minutes in their special submission-grappling match, settling for an anticlimactic draw.

Although it ended in a stalemate, Kelly was rewarded with a $50,000 bonus for her dominance over Yamaguchi the entire regulation.

In the curtain-raiser bout of ONE X, Senzo Ikeda (14-6-1) of Japan set the action-packed tone of the highly-anticipated event by stopping compatriot Ryuto Sawada (14-8-1) with a volley of vicious strikes on the ground in the second round.