Mixed martial artist Lito Adiwang is keeping a close eye on the strawweight matchup between top contenders Hiroba Minowa and Bokang Masunyane at ONE 159 on July 22 which will be broadcast live from the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Masunyane is the second-ranked contender in the stacked strawweight division while Minowa is the third-ranked fighter and is someone who has a lot of history with Adiwang.
Minowa made his ONE Championship debut against the Filipino and took a controversial split decision victory at ONE: Inside the Matrix III in November 2020.
Adiwang locked in a vicious kimura midway through the first round that should have submitted practically anyone, and he believed that Minowa actually tapped out to the submission hold. That, however, wasn’t the case as Minowa held on to take the win.
With their first match ending in such a razor-thin finish, Adiwang said he wanted Minowa to take the victory against Masunyane so that he and the Japanese grappler will have another go-around inside the Circle.
“If given a chance in facing one of them, I want to face the winner of their match and I’m really hoping that Minowa will win this one so that we will dance one more time and I can clear my record especially since he got a controversial win over me.”
Adiwang, however, favors Masunyane to get the win since the South African star has a better wrestling game than Minowa. But if his wishes are to be fulfilled, he hopes to see Minowa get the win and set up a rematch between them.
The 29-year-old Adiwang, meanwhile, has assured his fans that he is recovering following his surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Adiwang suffered the injury during his fight against fellow Filipino Jeremy Miado at ONE X last March.
Adiwang said he is solely focused on his rehabilitation so that he’ll be back inside the ONE circle as fit as possible. – Harley F. Palangchao
