He was standing within the ring at Lumpinee Stadium when the announcer began talking. He thought he was getting one other bonus. Then the phrase “contract” landed. He nonetheless couldn’t absolutely course of it when he walked out.
Taiga “Black Samurai” Orii stopped Julian Mayorga through ground-and-pound TKO at 3:03 of the primary spherical at The Inside Circle on June 5 at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, to assert the US$100,000 ONE Championship contract.
The 30-year-old Japanese fighter has now completed each opponent he has ever confronted throughout his skilled profession, including Mayorga to a listing that features Zar Mawia in his promotional debut in April.
4 years earlier, Orii had by no means thrown a severe punch in competitors. He was working as a Japanese translator in Cebu, the Philippines, and wandered into an MMA fitness center out of curiosity. What adopted was a 10-2 novice document, three straight skilled finishes, the Philippine Fight Championship Featherweight Title, and a ONE Championship debut that has now produced two wins and a contract within the span of eight weeks.
The origin of the entire thing traces again to a YouTube channel. Orii had a Japanese MMA fighter as an idol whose movies broke down approach between sparring classes, and he described what these movies did to his understanding of the game.
“MMA was simply merely a passion for me at the beginning. The rationale why I began doing it’s that I had all the time had an idol in Japan, who’s a YouTuber and an MMA fighter,” he stated.
“Once I watched his YouTube movies each time after sparring, he all the time defined [different techniques of MMA], and that’s after I realized it truly is one thing for good folks, it’s not only a avenue struggle.”
Taiga Orii now has a contract and a bantamweight World Title in thoughts
Taiga Orii set modest targets when he began coaching. ONE Championship was not on the map. He described the ceiling he had positioned on himself earlier than outcomes started to push it increased with each struggle.
That ceiling moved struggle by struggle by way of the Philippine novice circuit, then by way of three skilled finishes, then by way of a contract announcement at Lumpinee Stadium that he barely believed when it arrived.
“For me, after I began coaching, combating for a company like ONE Championship was means above the sky. So, I didn’t even dream of it as a result of it was too excessive a objective, and I simply began three to 4 years in the past,” he stated.
“I nonetheless can’t imagine that I earned the contract. I believed the announcer was saying one thing else, and I believed to myself, ‘Yeah, it’s one other bonus.’ However after I heard it was the contract… Yeah, I simply couldn’t imagine it at the moment. I’m actually grateful for the chance. I’ll attempt my greatest to attain my targets.”
