"I put all my life in the circle" - Joseph Lasiri starts his title reign

Joseph Lasiri is starting his reign as ONE strawweight Muay Thai world champion in the best way he knows how.

Lasiri fought through adversity to reach the pinnacle of his division and he’s using the same sentiment that former champion Prajanchai PK.Saenchai used to describe him.

During the post-fight press conference, Lasiri said that he put his life on the line to win the world title. He also didn’t mind if he became overly emotional after his victory at ONE 157: Petchmorakot vs. Vienot last Friday at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Joseph Lasiri said:

“I put my life inside the circle. Prajanchai said, ‘Joseph Lasiri is too emotional to fight me,’ but this is my emotion. Emotion for me is everything and I put my emotion in my training camp, I put my emotion everywhere, and I show my personality. That’s the difference.”

Lasiri didn’t have a great start in his ONE Championship career, going 0-4 in his first four fights in the promotion. Nevertheless, he persevered and a move to strawweight saw him defeat Rocky Ogden and Asahi Shinagawa to set up his title shot against Prajanchai.

‘The Hurricane’ then took the opportunity and ran with it. The Italian-Moroccan star put in the performance of a lifetime against Prajanchai, executing a well-coordinated attack that earned him the third-round technical knockout win.

“People only say Joseph Lasiri cannot find Prajanchai, I know that people think like this. But my goal was this one, come here, prove to myself, and other people that if you work hard, you can do everything. It’s because of your emotion it's because of your personality. If you work hard, you’ll get the result you want.”

---

Joseph Lasiri thanks his detractors

Lasiri wasn’t just fighting Prajanchai in his title match. In his mind, he was also going up against the people who said he wasn’t ready for a title reign.

Lasiri said it was these people who repeatedly said he couldn’t match up to Prajanchai who put him in a mentality of putting it all on the line.

The 30-year-old from Monza, Italy, was motivated to not just beat Prajanchai, but also inspired to prove the doubters wrong.

“Thank you to all of you people who thought that I cannot fight Prajanchai. I’m not angry with them because they don’t understand…The people who look and write online, they don’t know anything, so I hope I can be an inspiration to these people.”