Lito “Thunder Kid” Adiwang watched and cheered on as his Filipino compatriot Jeremy “The Jaguar” Miado blasted away on Hiroba Minowa in the early goings of their bout at ONE Fight Night 23 last June 6, in Bangkok, Thailand.
Miado even scored an early knockdown. But the Japanese man hung tough before he started to take over with his wrestling. And after three gruelling rounds of strawweight MMA action, Minowa earned a split-decision win over Miado
This gave the Filipino his fourth straight defeat despite actually doing better than in his previous matches.
For Adiwang, Miado’s loss is a continuous reminder to every Filipino fighter out there – work on your ground game because it’s critical at this level.
“It goes to show the importance of sharpening your ground game and defense. That’s the only way we can hang with [high] level grapplers and wrestlers,” Adiwang said.
“We need to constantly improve. Not just to hang around and survive, but to also be on the same level as them. We have to step our game up to stand out and be dominant.”
That’s actually one of the reasons why Adiwang decided to move away from the comforts of Baguio City to train at Soma Fight Club in Indonesia.
Feeling like he hit his ceiling at Team Lakay, Adiwang packed his bags and is now trying to squeeze more out of his wrestling game as he trains with better grapplers on a daily basis.
Adiwang can’t speak for Miado, but he believes that it will be best for “The Jaguar” to travel abroad and focus on improving his wrestling so he can pair it with his world-class striking before his next fight.
“For me, he really needs to sacrifice, get out of his comfort zone again, and try to cross-train with higher level wrestlers and grapplers,” Adiwang said.
“His striking is top notch already. He just needs to improve his grappling, scrambles, and defense to be able to hang with the elites.”
