By Kevin Estrada
Lito Adiwang saw his seven-fight winning run at ONE Championship came to a screeching halt, dropping a split decision loss to Hiroba Minowa at Inside the Matrix III that was aired Friday night from the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The former Shooto strawweight king barged into the win column at his debut at ONE, negating the Thunder Kid’s first round onslaught with his patient ground game in the next two rounds.
With both fighters heading into the bout with identical 11-2 MMA records, Adiwang set the tone from the opening bell, firing in a right-left striking combo to rattle the 21 year-old but could not finish him off with his signature Kimura lock as the Japanese got away from his multiple submission attempts.
However, Minowa turned it around in the last two rounds, taking him out to the middle of the circle to take the win with his ground game, firing in a series of strikes to prevent any submission attempts and grinding out a massive decision win and with that, a chance of breaking out to the ONE strawweight rankings after taking out the number five contender.
The defeat of the Thunder Kid was his third overall, his first since November 2014 where he dropped the same split decision to Aden Baron at Ultimate Beatdown 15.
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