This year might belong to the Filipinas of ONE Championship.
After having no Filipina World Champions in ONE Championship in its first 13 years, the promotion now has two in just a six-month stretch thanks to ONE Strawweight Kickboxing World Champion Jackie Buntan and now-undisputed ONE Atomweight MMA World Champion Denice “The Menace” Zamboanga.
Buntan recalls the first time she spent time with Zamboanga — which happened in December 2022 when they both competed at ONE Fight Night 5 in the Filipina-American’s first fight at Mall of Asia Arena in the Philippines.
“When me and Denice both fought on the same card in Manila, I remember walking to the warm-up room post-fight and we were both icing our faces — we had a laugh about that,” Buntan said.
Back then, the two were merely on-the-rise contenders looking to build themselves up after experiencing their first setbacks in the promotion.
Buntan was fresh off a loss to Smilla Sundell when they competed for the inaugural ONE Strawweight Muay Thai World Title, while Zamboanga was reeling from back-to-back defeats to Ham Seo Hee.
Both Buntan and Zamboanga ended up victorious that night, with the former beating Amber Kitchen while the latter edged out Lin Heqin in the show’s opener.
More than two years later, the two are now the queens of their respective divisions as they haven’t lost since then, with both women winning their next three fights to finally reach the top of their weight classes.
“It’s a deeply significant and proud moment to be one of the two Filipinas in ONE Championship to reach World Champion status,” Buntan said.
“To have two Filipinas be at the top of their divisions at the same time just shows the growth of women in martial arts during this day and age.”
