Jeremy “The Juggernaut” Pacatiw was happy to highlight his full arsenal in his return to the ONE Championship Circle.
Pacatiw displayed his well-roundedness, dominating the stand-up exchanges before scoring a submission win over Tial Thang in their bantamweight MMA bout on the main card of ONE 164: Pacio vs. Brooks on Saturday at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, Philippines.
Pacatiw quickly sunk in the triangle choke, getting the second-round submission win over the Burmese-American and electrifying his home-country crowd in the process.
“As a martial artist we need to train everything, not only in one arsenal. This is mixed martial arts, and it’s composed of a lot of disciplines,” Pacatiw said.
“With the proper and right people in the gym, we trained and honed our [skills], we kept on grinding, and repetition [was] key. That’s it, that’s why I was able to execute the triangle.
“It wasn’t the game plan, but it just came, so I saw it as an opportunity and I took it.”
The victory not only allowed him to bounce back after getting finished by Fabricio Andrade in his previous outing, it earned him a $50,000 performance bonus from ONE Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong.
“Having that bonus is life changing because as a martial artist, it’s very hard,” he said.
“We’re very blessed. We are thankful to sir Chatri because we impressed him and he gave us a 50K bonus in return. I’m very speechless.”
The celebrations were low-key for Pacatiw, though, because five of his teammates dropped losses on the same day.
