Lakay hopes to bounce back from painful ONE Championship year

MANILA, Philippines — Mark Sangiao and Team Lakay is in a peculiar place.

After a 2016 campaign that saw the famed Baguio fight stable collect myriad victories, Sangiao and some members of the team hit a snag after another in 2017. The worst came when Eduard Folayang’s lost his lightweight title to division visitor Martin Nguyen, who took his belt before a packed crowd at the Mall of Asia Arena.

But this has not been the first time that they were dealt with a slump.

“I think most of us fell into the trap of complacency,” the ringmaster offered in Filipino during the team’s last fight in Bangkok, Thailand, last weekend. “That’s why you can’t deny those results.”

April Osenio, the last beacon of hope for Lakay to snare a win before the year ends, fell to a heftier and much more powerful foe in the “Warriors of the World” showpiece. Matching her Chinese assignment for half of the first round, the female fighter got tagged with right punch that sent her knees — and eventually, her body — down to the ground.

Former strawweight challenger Joshua Pacio likewise lost to Hayato Suzuki while Edward Kelly fell to Emilio Urrutia in August; Geje Eustaquio was unable to outlast Kairat Akhmetov in September; Danny Kingad fell short in dethroning Adriano Moraes in a flyweight title showdown last November; while Gina Iniong was unable to defeat Mei Yamaguchi for a step closer to the atomweight strap.

The aforementioned losses were just too much as they eclipsed the recent victories of lightweight Honorio Banario and bantamweight Kevin Belingon.

“We have to go back and review our inadequacies,” Sangiao said of the shaky year. “An individual assessment on what else should we improve is on deck.”

“We have to focus on training and the further development of each of our fighter’s skills,” he furthered.

“They’ve ran out of excuses,” Sangiao closed. “Next year, they’ll be able to focus much more.