ONE Championship: Wondergirl Jaroonsak aiming for strawweight MMA rankings by end of 2022 after ‘dream’ debut
- Muay Thai star submitted India’s Zeba Bano in the first round at ONE 157 last Friday in Singapore
- The 23-year-old feels she still has ‘a lot of things to work on’ but hopes to be in top five by end of year
Muay Thai star Wondergirl Jaroonsak is eager to keep her momentum going after an impressive mixed martial arts debut last Friday in Singapore.
The 23-year-old Thai made her professional MMA debut on the undercard of the ONE Championship 157 event, taking on India’s Zeba Bano. Despite being less experienced, she ended up winning by submission in the first round.
It was an outcome that even she did not expect.
“I couldn’t sleep the night before,” she told the Post on Thursday evening, less than a week after her successful debut. “After the fight me and my coach were saying, ‘Are we dreaming?’
“If I won by striking, by Muay Thai skill, I would not have been that surprised because I’m from Muay Thai background and I’m really confident to use my Muay Thai skill in MMA. But it turns out I used my [Brazilian jiu jitsu] skill.
“The submission, I wasn’t expecting.”
Wondergirl has been learning Muay Thai for most of her life, and has competed in more than 50 professional bouts, including three in the ONE Circle. Yet she has only been studying the grappling arts for a few years, which is what made her submission win over Bano so impressive.