Wondergirl Jaroonsak has always wanted to compete in MMA. She has a few amateur fights under her belt and was hoping ONE Championship would give her an opportunity immediately.
But the promotion was reluctant so sign a fighter who had yet to make her pro debut and she had to wait four years for her opportunity. Speaking in an interview with SCMP MMA she said,
“Actually, I have been planning to move to MMA since day one, back in Pattaya. Because back then, three, four years (ago), I was really wanting to fight in MMA. I got 3-1 (in amateur fights) wo submissions, one knockout, and I lost via ground-and-pound.”
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Not reciprocated
She moved to Fairtex in order to become a mixed martial artist. Wondergirl was hoping ONE Championship would sign her and says she worked hard to achieve this ambition,
“That was a long time ago. I was training in Pattaya because my main purpose was to sign in MMA with any promotion. ONE (was) my first choice back then. And then I trained, trained, trained.”
Initially she was very keen to pursue her MMA dreams with ONE Championship but the feeling was not reciprocal. It wasn’t until she started to enjoy success in Muay Thai that a contract offer was forthcoming,
“Mr Chatri came to the gym, he was like, feeling not really wanting me to fight in MMA back then because I didn’t seem like I’m ready. I was pretty new to the sport. But back then I got the Thailand title, champion Muay Thai, so yeah, they gave me an opportunity to fight in ONE Championship in a Muay Thai contract.”
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Back to back
The Thai will finally make her MMA debut against Zeba Bano at ONE 157 in Singapore on Friday. But the 23-year-old has already made her name in the ONE Super Series scoring back-to-back stoppage victories against Brooke Farrell and KC Carlos,
She came unstuck in her third ONE Muay Thai bout against Jackie Buntan. Wondergirl suffered a knockdown which broke her orbital bone and left her side-lined for six months.
But she would relish the opportunity to rematch Buntan and would be willing to put her MMA ambitions on hold in order to do it,
“I signed with ONE Championship (for) around six fights and I still have (a) Muay Thai contract for three fights. So, if I have the chance, I would like to rematch Jackie. I really want to fight and focus on MMA but if they give me a chance I’ll take the fight. I’m ready, of course.”
Wondergirl is not afraid to test herself against the best. But she has a very winnable looking fight coming up against an opponent who has never fought outside of India before.
She had to wait a long time to get her MMA opportunity. But Wondergirl is determined to make the most of it and would like to put the strawweight division on notice with a big win at ONE 157 this week.
