ONE Championship titleholder Joshua Pacio talks about defending his title at Fire and Fury [Exclusive]

ONE Championship Strawweight titleholder Joshua Pacio is about to head to ONE: Fire and Fury to do two things.

On one side, his focus will be on his fight as he will be defending his MMA title against Alex Silva in what promises to be quite the fight. On the other, he will be fighting in the Philippines and representing his home country in front of the world with an aim to perform to the best of his ability.

I was able to talk to the Champion ahead of the highly touted fight.

Talking about defending his title again in a matter of one month, he called it a blessing to compete almost immediately.

As a champion it means a lot to me to defend my title again, it's rare that you see a champion defending his title immediately after winning a month ago so its a blessing for me to be able to compete immediately knowing that I'll be defending it here in the Philippines.

Regarding his mindset before the upcoming title matchup, he said that he was completely focused only on the fight.

The only thing that is running to my mind right now is to be able to defend the title again, and I'm 100 percent focused on the bout and on our game plan.

For the coming year, he said that his goals were to keep improving and showcase a different Joshua Pacio in every bout.

This 2020 my goal is to keep on improving, every single bout this 2020, I want to see a different Joshua Pacio every bout.

He also talked about the importance of representing the Philippines in his fights.

Representing my country at this level is so important, I want to show that Philippines can compete with the best even if Philippines is just a small country.

Finally, talking about fighting for ONE Championship, he revealed that his family, coaches, and teammates motivate him and push him during defeats and victories.

My biggest inspiration while competing here in ONE is of course my family, my teammates, and coaches. They are the ones who push me and keeping me motivated, they are the who is with me in times of defeat and happy times and of course the ONE Championship itself has been an inspiration to me. Just reading some of the post of Sir Chatri motivates me a lot, there’s a lesson that you will learn in every post.

The fight against Alex Silva will see Joshua enter the cage on 31st January at ONE: Fire and Fury.