A bloody Bashir Ahmad earned a decision victory over Thailand’s Shannon Wiratchai on his One FC debut in Kings & Champions on Friday night at the Serangoon Indoor Stadium.
The Pakistani was eager to secure a first win for his homeland on the international MMA stage and that enthusiasm showed with an aggressive approach in his fight against Shannon.
The 30-year-old did not let an early takedown in the second minute upset him even if the referee had to call a timeout after the fighter suffered a cut to his left eye.
After getting some medical attention, the South Asian came back much stronger and delivered a number of dangerous right-handed punches.
Nevertheless, Shannon, a judo specialist, was focused enough to secure a second takedown and got into a full mount position. The Thai fighter carried out side jabs to the grounded Bashir but his opponent managed to reverse a takedown and, from a standing mount position, drew blood from his opponent as well.
In the subsequent rounds, Bashir fared much better and capitalised on Shannon’s limited reach to good effect. Two powerful chest kicks in the second minute of the middle round drew widespread applause as the debutant began to regain the initiative.
The final round saw both fighters stay largely on their feet as they adopted conservative tactics ahead of a likely decision.
Shannon, though, was still keen for a knockout win in his favour and tried to goad his opponent into dropping his guard. However, Bashir did not take the bait and carried out regular low kicks to the legs of the Phuket native to further boost his fight statistics.
In this manner, the Pak MMA founder managed to see out the round and began to celebrate after the bell was rung for a third and final time.
His optimism proved justified as the judges announced a unanimous decision victory and the Pakistani will now head back home to Lahore with his bloody head held high.
The injury did take his toll as he took over an hour to get patched up for the post-fight interview and needed five stitches.
However, he was delighted with securing his second win in such a big stage and revealed his hope that the result would have a positive impact on MMA in Pakistan.
“I’m feeling happy and I feel really bad for my wife who had to see me get bruised like that! I feel happy but I think it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” he said.
“But yeah, I think the win means everything for MMA in Pakistan.
“I hope it gets the attention on the sport [in Pakistan] and makes people proud, that’s the number one thing. I hope everybody is happy and things get bigger because of this.”
Moreover, he stated that his decision win was justified as he was forthcoming in his fighting approach over the three rounds.
“I think I got the win because I was coming forward and I was landing harder shots. When the fight was in the third round, I just told myself I had to try and land hard shots. I saw that the kicks were working so I kept using that.
“It was a really good test for me especially as I got cut within the first minute! It was an uphill battle for me from there and I’m glad that I pulled it off.
“This is the first time I was in a real MMA fight and I’m glad it was on this stage and I’m happy the way it turned out.
“Let’s wait for my face to get normal again and yeah, definitely I can’t wait to get back into the ring sometime this year!”
