On June 14, 2014, Coach Aung La Nsang made his OneFC debut. Not only that, but he won it with a first round knockout! This was a huge moment for Aung La’s career and the team as a whole.
One Fighting Championship (OneFC) is essentially the Asian version of the UFC. It is a Singapore-based mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion and widely recognized as Asia’s #1 MMA promotion. The event is home to many mixed martial artists who have also fought in the UFC, as well as many up-and-coming prospects such as Ben Askren. OneFC uses a more open rule-set than UFC, and allows soccer kicks on a downed opponent so the fight itself would be more dangerous.
Aung would be fighting on OneFC 17: Era of Champions all the way out in Jakarta, Indonesia. The adventure would start early with Aung and his cornerman, Devon Delbrugge, getting detained at Immigration. Aung is a refugee from Burma and although he has a green card, he is not provided a passport but a US “travel document.” The Indonesian authorities didn’t appreciate this and told the two that they would have to get on the next plane back to the US (immediately after a 24 hour flight).
After a few frantic calls back to the US and consulting with criminal-lawyer-turned-immigration-lawyer, David Zwanetz, they were able to convince the Indonesians that they were not terrorists nor Americans who planned to illegally immigrate to South East Asia.
Getting detained at Immigration and having to talk your way out – just a normal day at Crazy 88.
The rest of the trip was relatively straightforward. Chill out at the hotel. Get interviewed. Chill out at the hotel. Go to a press conference where you mean mug your opponent. Chill out at the hotel.
How many different ways can you say you’re going to beat someone up?
Since Aungla is a Burmese folk-hero, many Kachin (a minority group of Myanmar) people came to support him. Aung claimed that many of these people were his actual family but that remains unconfirmed at this time. Two of these family members would become impromptu cornermen for the fight. Their orders were to bring stuff out and then be quiet.
This fight was set for three 5-minute rounds against Egyptian Top Team’s Mahmoud “Steel Man” Salama. Salama is tough competitor from overseas who held a record of 4 wins and 4 losses. All of his wins have been via TKO, so he was a very dangerous opponent.
No one hired us for the modeling deal but the Indonesians were happy to let us fight each other.
The fight began with some exchanges on the feet. Aung La attempted a takedown on Salama, but Salama was able to reverse it. Once they were on the ground, Aung set up a clean butterfly sweep to mount where he finished the fight with vicious ground and pound.
Aungla Celebrates after his OneFC victory; no idea who the people on the top half of the picture are.
Aungla was featured on the front page of the Bangkok News.
Aung has now moved his record to 16 wins and 9 losses and is looking to keep his momentum going. Aung’s goal is to continue to prove that he is a contender for the OneFC title and then nab the title. He will now be competing all over Asia in places like Singapore, China, and Japan.