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Kuala Lumpur – Li Nang, a young migrant worker wearing hot pants and high heels, stood before the statue of a gilt goddess garlanded with marigolds and fairy lights in Kuala Lumpur as she prayed for good business – and her own safety. Malaysia’s underground community of undocumented female workers was thrust into the spotlight when news emerged that
Kim Jong-Nam was assassinated by two women migrants using lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Since then, a Malaysian police crackdown on undocumented workers like Li has escalated – making their already vulnerable existence even more precarious.
Airport CCTV footage shows two women approaching the half-brother of North Korean leader. Kim Jong-Un and apparently rubbing his face with a cloth.
Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, have since been charged with the murder and face the death penalty if found guilty.
South Korea says Jong-Un ordered the killing of his estranged sibling, who had lived overseas for years but had voiced criticism of the regime, and engaged two outsiders to carry it out. Both women have told diplomats from their countries they were duped into believing that they were taking part in a TV prank show but Malaysian police have rejected their claims.
Little is known about them, with police saying that Huong worked at an “entertainment outlet” while Aisyah was a masseuse at a spa, but immigration experts say the secrecy surrounding their lives illustrates the clandestine existence led by thousands of undocumented Southeast Asian women migrants.
Many migrants travel to Malaysia through formal labour contracts, but thousands more take advantage of being allowed to work in Singapore and Malaysia for 30 days at a time, travelling back and forth between two or three countries and trying to earn as much as possible before their luck runs out.
Taking up jobs as cleaners, waitresses, masseuses and prostitutes, they live in the grip of a murky system, vulnerable to exploitation and harassment by police looking to shake them down for bribes.
As she prepared for work, Li, a 25-year-old Vietnamese prostitute, kept up a steady exchange of messages with her sister in Ho Chi Minh City, in an attempt to reassure relatives even as she herself feared for her safety. “I texted her saying ‘I have to take the risk. What choice do I have? I need the money’,” Li told AFP inside a dimly lit bar.
The arrests of her compatriot Huong and Indonesian Siti have brought unwelcome attention to a community which already has much to fear from Malaysian authorities. At a pub in the Petaling Jaya suburb, Filipina waitress Mika (not her real name) told AFP that police had intensified their efforts to hunt down illegal workers like her following Kim’s assassination.
Three of her friends working in the same bar were recently arrested by police.
“Fortunately I was off on that day. I think God saved me,” the single mother said.
“I am now living in constant fear. I do not want to be caught.”
The 35-year-old previously paid 3,600 ringgit ($800) to an employment agent to secure a long-term work visa, but he stole the money.
“Now I have a monthly visa. Before it expires I head to Thailand where I spend three nights. I give an agent a fee of 1,000 ringgit and he gets a new visa for another month,” she said.
“Life goes on like this every month.” Malaysia, Southeast Asia’s third largest economy, is highly dependent on foreign labour.
According to a World Bank report in 2015, the country hosts some 2.1 million registered migrants and likely more than one million others who are undocumented.
Women are especially vulnerable, with agents or employers forcing some of them to live together in the same house under constant surveillance, leaving them isolated and with little to no contact with the outside world, migrant rights’ activist Aegile Fernandez told AFP.
Often, their passports are withheld so they have no means of running away, leaving them open to abuse and exploitation, said Fernandez, co-director of Tenaganita, a Malaysian non-profit focusing on migrant worker protection.
“Some are even threatened by their employers that they will be handed to immigration, or even threatened with rape,” she said. “If you were in that situation, you would be in fear. You know there’s no way out, you just continue working.”
SINGAPORE — Nearly a week after sparking a lively online debate about art and vandalism in public spaces, an arts student has removed her “golden staircase” project save for a small square of gold foil near the bottom of a staircase at Jalan Rajah.
“The existence and the end of this work bears my responsibility and no one else’s. With a little trace left behind, a memento of the space. Till we meet again,” Ms Priyageetha Dia wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday (March 12), with an accompanying photograph showing the 20th floor staircase being returned to its original look.
The 25-year-old Lasalle College of the Arts student gave no details on when or how the gold foil was removed. The project was still intact when TODAY visited on Saturday at around 8pm.
On Tuesday (March 7), the Jalan Besar Town Council made clear that what she did was “unauthorised” and “not permissible” under the Town Council’s Common Property and Open Spaces by laws, but said it was reaching out to Ms Dia to explore future collaboration.
“If Ms Dia had approached our Town Council before embarking on her project, we might have been able to explore an alternative site that’s more suitable,” the Town Council added in a subsequent statement.
Ms Dia took about five hours last Sunday (March 5) to set up her “golden staircase” project, which she said was aimed at questioning whether it was possible to draw a line between art and vandalism.
Meanwhile, those who want to see more of her work can visit the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore’s Praxis Space and Project Space in Lasalle, where another project by Ms Dia, also using gold foil, is on public display.
This particular art work features a 140cm by 70cm piece of translucent rubber sheet covered on one side with gold leaves. It will be on display until March 26.
Photo: Wong Pei Ting
Forensics had measured precise locations of moles on his face, with several noted to be distinctive of Mr Kim’s. Three moles lined near one of his eyes and a mole on the right of his lips were keys to making the match.
Malaysian police came to identify Kim Jong Nam through the moles on his face, a local newspaper has reported.
Mr Kim, who died in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 13 after being attacked with the lethal VX nerve agent, had 21 moles on his face, according to the New Straits Times.
In the absence of DNA evidence from Mr Kim’s next-of-kin, the daily reported, the police relied on “secondary evidence” to positively identify him as the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Mr Kim was carrying a passport in the name of Kim Chol when he died.
Citing an unnamed source, the daily reported that officials had used a known photo of Mr Kim and matched the positions of moles scattered across his face with that of the body that was lying in Kuala Lumpur Hospital’s morgue.
Forensics had measured precise locations of the moles on his face, with several noted to be distinctive of Mr Kim’s. Three moles lined near one of his eyes and a mole on the right of his lips were keys to making the match.
Mr Kim is also known to have an oriental design tattoo of a man with two Japanese carps spread across his torso.
The newspaper said forensics had determined these characteristics were unique to Mr Kim.
Deputy Health Minister Hilmi Yahaya told reporters yesterday that the authorities have not decided what to do with Mr Kim’s remains.
“According to the law in Malaysia, there is no time limit to release or not release a body,” Datuk Seri Hilmi said.
He added that if the deceased was not claimed by his next-of-kin, the body could be buried in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Malaysia hopes to open negotiations with North Korea in the “next few days” to secure the release of its citizens trapped in Pyongyang following a diplomatic row over the investigations into Mr Kim’s murder, the Foreign Minister said yesterday.
Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said Wisma Putra “is in communication with the North Korea government through its embassy in Kuala Lumpur”.
ltrinna@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on March 12, 2017.
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A 25-year-old van driver was arrested on Saturday (March 11) for a rash act causing death.
This was a collision on the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) involving the driver’s van and nine motorcycles.
The collision left two motorcyclists dead and six injured.
The two motorcyclists, aged 34 and 50, were pronounced dead at the scene. The six injured motorcyclists were taken to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.
Police said they were alerted to the accident at 3.49pm.
Videos posted on Facebook and circulated on WhatsApp show at least two police tents at the area under the Seletar Expressway (SLE) flyover, towards Woodlands near the SLE exit.
According to a message circulating on WhatsApp, the motorcyclists had sought shelter from rain under the flyover when the accident occurred.
A video accompanying the message shows six men sprawled on the ground, with two bleeding.
BKE accident: Motorcycle being removed from site
Another video, posted by Facebook user Aishah Osman, shows police vehicles at the scene, with at least nine motorcycles at the side. Some of them had toppled over and looked damaged. An ambulance was also seen.
One motorcyclist who had been taking shelter and whose bike had been slightly damaged told The Straits Times that “it was chaotic”.
Investigations are ongoing.
The van driver’s driving licence will be suspended with immediate effect, police said.
The police have urged the public not to circulate photos or videos of the deceased, out of respect for the families.
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This article was first published on March 11, 2017.
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SINGAPORE: With Singapore theatre company The Necessary Stage (TNS) celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, a very familiar name in the theatre scene has been regularly cropping up: Haresh Sharma.
After all, the company’s resident playwright is one-half of the dynamic duo behind the much-respected theatre group. For three decades, Sharma and TNS founder and artistic director Alvin Tan have pushed their brand of socially-conscious and stylistically innovative theatre.
This year, audiences are certainly having their fill of not just TNS but of Sharma, too, whose plays – old and new – are getting quite a bit of airing.
In February, there was the newly written monologue Actor, Forty, featuring actress Yeo Yann Yann. This month, there’s his school comedy Those Who Can’t, Teach, and a double-bill of Don’t Forget to Remember Me, and Don’t Know, Don’t Care.
Even the Esplanade is in on the act, with this year’s Studios series completely dedicated to Sharma’s plays. Beginning next week, the plays Fundamentally Happy, Hope, Completely With/Out Character, and This Chord And Others are reimagined, translated and restaged. Another experimental show, Precise Purpose Of Being Broken, is based on fragments of Sharma’s texts.
Fast forward to June, and the love fest continues: A TNS and Cake Theatrical Productions collaboration titled Being Haresh Sharma, which will also use texts from his plays through the years.
(Mind you, while all of this takes place, the 2015 Cultural Medallion recipient’s fingerprints are all over another production on the side – he has flexed his creative muscles and plunged into the world of musicals by writing the book for the new 1960s themed Tropicana, which opens in April.)
So how do you get into the Haresh Sharma frame of mind? We sat down with theatremakers involved in some of the productions this year to find out more about one of Singapore’s most important and prolific playwrights. Here are five things we found out.
***
The Esplanade’s 2017 Studios season includes Sharma’s Fundamentally Happy (Photo: Tuckys Photography)
1. HARESH SHARMA ISN’T JUST ABOUT HARESH SHARMA
The longtime resident playwright of The Necessary Stage may have a gazillion plays with his name on them, but Sharma subverts the image of the writer working in solitude.
Instead, collaboration is deeply embedded in his DNA – you can’t talk about Haresh Sharma’s legacy as an artist without mentioning his longtime creative partner-in-crime, TNS’ artistic director Alvin Tan, or even the theatre group itself.
“Can you separate Haresh Sharma from The Necessary Stage or Alvin Tan? I don’t think so. They go hand in hand,” said Loo Zihan, who’s staging With/Out at the Esplanade, an interpretation of the 1999 docudrama Completely With/Out Character, which is based on the life of the late Paddy Chew, the first Singaporean with AIDS to come out in public.
Loo, whose relationship with the company began as a technical intern before landing his first theatre gig as a multimedia designer in 2008, pointed out how Sharma and Tan “balance each other out” in rehearsals. “Haresh is particular about details and Alvin sketches the broader strokes,” he said.
The company’s trademark devising methods also meant everyone had a say in fleshing out a work, before Haresh went off and wrote based on whatever came out of their workshops.
Natalie Hennedige, who is directing the show Being Haresh Sharma in June, was another TNS alumni during the early 2000s before starting her own company, Cake Theatrical Productions. She recalled: “A lot of what happened creatively happened in rehearsals. That space was always the space of the actors, Alvin and Haresh, the stage manager, production people… We would devise a scene for an hour and it would feel like 15 minutes – and we’d have a tight, rich eight-minute scene on paper.”
Beyond being a playwright, Loo said, “Haresh was a dramaturg before the term was even popularised in this part of the region. He’s actually putting pieces of the puzzle together to maximize the impact of storytelling.”
And he’s known to be meticulous not just with words, too. “For a young theatre artist, he can be a little bit intimidating when you first start working with him,” recalled an amused Loo. “Anyone operating the sound for any show can really be on the edge when he’s in the room – he can discern the difference between one decibel louder or softer. That speaks to how he’s a kind of perfectionist, with the production’s best interest in mind.”
Teater Ekamatra’s Harap is a Malay translation of Sharma’s 1994 piece Hope. (Photo: Tuckys Photography)
2. HE’LL DO WHATEVER HE WANTS – AND WANTS YOU TO DO THE SAME
But if Sharma had a reputation for being sharp and meticulous (and, for TNS newbies, intimidating), he was also an encouraging soul who egged artists to look ahead and be adventurous.
“He was fearless in his belief that you should do what you want and not be swayed or tripped by other things. In that way, he taught me the lesson of fierce, artistic independence,” recalled Hennedige.
“They didn’t coddle me at The Necessary Stage but they also taught me never to mourn or celebrate your work too much. He always told me never to be affected by what people think, and that as artists go through stages, we sometimes want to take our work somewhere else. That was huge for me.” Hennedige took these words to heart, setting up Cake in 2005.
Even those who have only occasionally worked with TNS have noticed the forward-thinking and inclusive mindset by Sharma and his colleagues.
Koh Wan Ching, who’s crafting Precise Purpose Of Being Broken, pointed out how the company created various platforms for experimentation. She herself had taken part in one of these, The Orange Playground laboratory in 2015.
“They’ve also created many other ‘playgrounds’ through the years,” added Nelson Chia. The co-founder of Nine Years Theatre, which is co-staging a Mandarin version of Sharma’s Fundamentally Happy, cited TNS’ different platforms for community, the youth and senior citizens.
“Sharma and the TNS team have been very generous in creating a lot of spaces for other people to come in and work with them,” he said, recalling how his fledgling Mandarin theatre company was invited to do a play to open the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival in 2014.
This Chord And Others, a play about three young men, was first staged in 1991. (Photo: Tuckys Photography)
3. HE’S A MASTER WORDSMITH WHO WRITES LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS
Of course, at the heart of Sharma’s reputation is his talent as a writer. From his knack of using Singlish to great effect to the layered economy of his words, theatremakers are unanimous in their praise.
“Working on With/Out, you really appreciate the economy of his use of language and text. He can have very complex and emotionally impactful things with very little text. And his use of Singlish, it’s always shorthand for something else,” said Loo.
Meanwhile, Chia remembers his first encounter with a Sharma play when he was still a student at the National University of Singapore. “It was Still Building and that was the first time I saw so many layers in a play. As a young theatre student, I never knew a play could have so many layers!”
For two artists directing a Sharma play for the first time, it’s been an opportunity to really see just how potent a wordsmith he was.
Said Teater Ekamatra artistic director Fared Jainal, who’s directing Harap, a Malay translation of the play Hope: “On the surface, if you look at the piece, it’s simply people talking. But that’s the beauty of Haresh’s works. He doesn’t say a lot but within the conversations, there’s a lot brewing under the surface.”
For Tim Nga, who’s taking on the bro comedy This Chord And Others: “I’ve always found Haresh’s texts difficult because they are deceptively simple, they’re written in a local style but there’s a lot going on and he weaves them together thick and fast.”
Actress Janice Koh comes on board With/Out, Loo Zihan’s interpretation of Sharma’s Completely With/Out Character. (Photo: Tuckys Photography)
4. HE KNOWS YOU (AND YOU AND YOU) LIKE THE BACK OF HIS HAND
Plays are about people, and through the years, Sharma has written some of the most vivid and memorable characters to appear onstage. And they come in all shapes and sizes, whether it’s the tragic fictitious Vinod and Saloma of Off Centre or the real life Paddy Chew in Completely With/Out Character.
“One beauty about his plays is that his understanding of a particular race or culture is very strong,” says Fared.
Citing Sharma’s Best Of pieces, two separate monologues about a Malay woman and man, he said: “If you didn’t know they were by Haresh, you’d have thought they were written by a Malay person. He’s able to comprehend a lot of the experiences and sensitivities in his works, whether he’s writing about Malays, Chinese or whatever race he decides to project.”
For Koh, one of Sharma’s main contributions has been the creation of a veritable multicultural army of characters that cut across class, race, religion, culture and gender. “He has written so many different types – and there are a lot of females, which I really appreciate,” she said, pointing out that her decision to have an all-female cast for her experimental piece Precise Purpose Of Being Broken is a subtle nod to that.
And it’s not just about creating characters out of air but giving the lives of often marginalised real-life folk an airing, such as what TNS did with Completely With/Out Character. The original 1999 monologue by Paddy Chew had left a huge impact on the public, said Loo.
“It was the pinnacle of Haresh and Alvin doing documentary theatre. They were interested in real people’s real stories and that really pushed the agenda to its limits. One of the criticisms that was leveled against it (when it was first staged) was whether it was ethically or morally sound to be making this play and have Paddy perform his life onstage given his health condition. But at the same time, we would not have it (if it wasn’t staged) and it remains one of the most significant plays in TNS’ repertoire,” said Loo.
TNS general manager Melissa Lim pointed out that one of the reasons why Sharma’s works – including the characters he’s created – connect well with audiences is the fact that he does a lot of research to cover all angles.
“If the sheer volume of work he has created is impressive, wait till you see the sheer volume of research behind them,” quipped Lim, who’s privy and often involved, too, in collating material that the TNS folks work on prior to the creating their plays.
Whether it’s hanging out at schools while preparing for Those Who Can’t, Teach; visiting halfway houses and talking to medical professionals for Off Centre; or even watching a lot of movies for the recent Yeo Yann Yann monologue Actor, Forty, Sharma and gang certainly don’t take the easy way out.
Koh Wan Ching’s Precise Purpose Of Being Broken takes on fragments of Sharma’s texts and features an all-female cast. (Photo: Tuckys Photography)
5. IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND SINGAPORE, JUST WATCH HIS PLAYS
That statement may sound a bit presumptuous, but there’s a grain of truth to it. After all, Sharma has written more than a hundred plays since the late 1980s, many of which have become classics, published in books, taught in schools, and staged and restaged countless times (here and overseas).
Name the topic or style and Sharma has done it: He’s done funny, experimental, realist, gut-wrenching drama; he’s touched on the educational system, mental health, political detainees, paedophilia, race relations, LGBT issues, and many more – all filtered through the Singaporean sensibility.
“He writes very much from a Singapore point of view and gets into what’s happening on the day to day,” said Nga. “He writes things and characters come from a particular time in Singapore, which are relevant to that period and, in a way, it’s almost like the history of his plays is a running commentary on the issues in Singapore as they unfold.”
“He’s truly a growing playwright,” observed Chia. “If you follow his work, you can see him grow and you sense the changes he makes in his next play, sometimes in terms of the topic or the characters or in terms of experimenting. Every time he’s putting out something new, you can expect that Haresh doesn’t just churn out a play for the sake of churning out.”
While it’s true that Sharma’s legacy is intrinsically intertwined with TNS, Loo pointed out that his plays also have a life of their own. “I think the plays being done, such as in this particular 30th anniversary of TNS, show that his work go beyond just Haresh, or TNS or Alvin. There’s a longevity in his work.”
Just when you thought she couldn’t get any better, reigning ONE Women’s Atomweight World Champion “Unstoppable” Angela Lee unveiled a new dimension to her evolving skill set that took her from impressive to terrifying.
The 20-year-old Lee went head-to-head with previously-unbeaten Jenny Huang of Chinese Taipei in the main event of ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM, which took place in front of a capacity crowd Saturday night, 11 March, at Bangkok’s Impact Arena in Thailand.
The youngest MMA world champion in history, Lee dominated the entire matchup from start to finish, peppering a game but outclassed Huang with pinpoint accurate strikes. By the middle of the third round, Lee had overwhelmed Huang all the way to the mat, finishing her off with ground-and-pound.
The end came officially at 3:37 of round three, with Lee earning a technical knockout to retain the ONE Women’s Atomweight World Championship in her first title defense.
“Well I have had some time to work (on striking) because I haven’t fought in a while, so it feels really great,” Lee told Mitch Chilson in the post-fight interview. “It feels like I’m back home here in the ONE Championship cage. It feels amazing, I cannot describe what I’m feeling right now.”
Lee, known for her creative submission game, owned five submissions out of six total wins entering Saturday night’s main event. Fans and observers all but expected Lee to take matters to the ground once again to try and submit Huang, but Lee took matters into her own hands — literally.
Huang had her moments, and seemed content in pulling the counter, landing a handful of telling blows here and there. However, her successful hits were simply too few and far between. Lee just dominated the bout from end-to-end and there was no denying the champion this evening.
It was a spectacular performance from Lee, one that has surely cemented her place as one of the promotion’s top stars.
“Thank you guys for coming out. I have to say thank you to my opponent Jenny [Huang] for being such a courageous warrior. She brought out the best in me,” Lee added.
With the victory, Lee improves her record to an unblemished 7-0 and earns her first victory via TKO. Huang suffers the first loss of her young career and falls to 5-1.
SINGAPORE: Two motorcyclists were killed and six others injured after a serious accident along the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) on Saturday afternoon (Mar 11), involving nine motorcycles and a van.
The driver of the van, a 25-year-old man, has been arrested for rash act causing death, said the police, adding that his driving licence has been suspended with immediate effect.
The accident happened at the stretch after the Seletar Expressway (SLE) exit, towards Woodlands, and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it was alerted at about 3.50pm.
(Photo: Aishah Osman/ Facebook)
A video circulating on WhatsApp shows several motorcyclists lying motionless on the ground, with at least two of them bleeding. Some motorcycles had fallen on their side, items like bags and footwear were strewn on the road and one person had landed on the grass patch over the road railing.
At least one motorcycle had a Johor licence plate number.
Police said the two motorcyclists, aged 34 and 50, were pronounced dead at the scene. The injured were sent to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.
(Photo: Lee Hing Kit Derrick/ Facebook)
The accident caused a congestion stretching to the Mandai Road entrance, according to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in a tweet at about 5.15pm. Motorists were advised to avoid the extreme left lane.
Police said investigations are ongoing and urged members of the public not to circulate photos or videos of the victims, out of respect for their families.
Shannon “One Shin” Wiratchai was a genie in the bottle on Saturday Night, 11 March, except the only wish he granted was pain at ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM.
After an entrance clearly inspired by Disney’s Aladdin film, people might have been wondering if the Bangkok Fight Lab product was taking his fight against Richard”Notorious” Corminal seriously enough. The hometown crowd at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand, were undoubtedly entertained, but now he had to bring it inside the cage.
Indeed there were times during the fight when Wiratchai seemed to be smiling, laughing, and enjoying himself thoroughly. He did not enjoy the right hand that knocked him down early, though. Corminal might have been on the defensive, but once he let his fists fly, “One Shin” felt the sting and clearly realized he had a real fight on his hands.
Corminal, a Malaysian-based Filipino who trains out of Muayfit PJ, tried to pressure Wiratchai against the fence after taking a few hard shots. He looked for a takedown from behind, but the Thai hero successfully spun his way free and reset at the center of the cage, throwing a front kick to gauge the range. Once he had Corminal lined up, he threw a massive right hand and now it was Corminal’s turn to recover from a knockdown.
Wiratchai was not going to give him that chance, however. He came forward with a lightning-fast array of strikes, left and right hands, and a flying knee to boot. In the end, it was one precise right hand to the chin that caused Corminal to crumble. Referee Yuji Shimada decided he had seen enough, waving off the contest at 3:37 of the first round.
“One Shin,” who moves to 7-1, declared his victory “the best feeling ever” and promised to have his eye on the upcoming title fight between ONE Lightweight World Champion Eduard Folayang and challenger Ev Ting at ONE: KINGS OF DESTINY. As for Corminal, he suffers his second career loss and falls to 4-2.
The comeback bout for former ONE Strawweight World Champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke took a back seat to the ascension of Joshua Pacio, as the Team Lakay fighter grinded out a hard-fought split decision win at ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM on Saturday Night, 11 March.
This was a bout filled with non-stop action, with the Filipino mixed martial artist Pacio controlling the opening two stanzas via takedowns and well-executed ground and pound. With a clear advantage on the feet, Amnuaysirichoke, a former three-time Lumpinee Muay Thai Champion, looked to jump to a fast start in the opener.
The Singaporean-based Thai fighter fired off punches and kicks, but slipped up and allowed Pacio to catch his foot and score a takedown. From there, Amnuaysirichoke spent the bulk of the round staring at the lights, while dodging punches and submission attempts.
Round two held more of the same for Amnuaysirichoke. Pacio caught another of the former champion’s kicks, and the Evolve MMA superstar was re-introduced to the canvas. The Team Lakay fighter was in full control. He peppered his Thai adversary with punches, but was unable to inflict much damage.
Amnuaysirichoke showed a brief sign of life, scrambling to his feet with two minutes left in the round, but surrendered his back in the escape attempt before being dragged back to the mat. The pair exchanged punches on the ground to conclude the second stanza.
Knowing he needed a spectacular finish for a chance to win, Amnuaysirichoke blitzed Pacio in the bout’s final round. The Filipino landed an uppercut early, but was unable to escape his opponent’s persistent attack.
As Amnuaysirichoke continued to stuff Pacio’s takedowns, his confidence grew. Late in the third, the Evolve MMA fighter landed several big right hands and even took Pacio’s back. He left his Filipino rival with a leg kick as a parting gift that landed with a thud to conclude the match.
While one judge was impressed with the third-round heroics, two judges gave the nod to Pacio. The Team Lakay warrior improves his record to 9-1 and is closer to a title rematch against current ONE Strawweight World Champion Yoshitaka “Nobita” Naito.
Amnuaysirichoke suffers his second-straight blemish, moving to 6-2, and loses again in Bangkok ten months after dropping the belt to Naito.
