Joshua Pacio Career Highlights | ONE Championship’s Filipino MMA King
Joshua Pacio became the standard for Filipino MMA champions
Joshua Pacio has spent most of his adult life fighting at the top of the ONE Championship strawweight division. He arrived as a gifted wushu striker from Baguio City, developed a dangerous submission game, and eventually became the most decorated Filipino MMA world champion in the promotion’s history.
This Joshua Pacio career highlights collection follows the different versions of “The Passion” that fans have seen inside the ONE cage. There is the young finisher who attacked without hesitation, the champion who learned how to survive five-round fights, and the more complete veteran who rebuilt himself after losing the belt.
For years, Pacio has been one of the central faces of ONE Championship, still frequently searched by longtime fans as ONE FC. His career has included title wins, sudden setbacks, brutal knockouts, slick submissions and one of the defining rivalries in modern Asian MMA.
From Team Lakay prospect to ONE strawweight world champion
Pacio joined ONE Championship in 2016 after winning his first six professional fights. He was only 20 years old when he began competing on the international stage, but it did not take long for him to earn his first world title opportunity.
That early challenge ended in defeat against Yoshitaka Naito. Pacio was still raw and found himself trapped by the more experienced Japanese grappler, but the loss became an important part of his development. Instead of remaining a striker who relied mainly on speed and athleticism, he began building a much deeper ground game.
His progression produced some of the most memorable finishes in ONE strawweight history. The spinning back fist against Roy Doliguez showed his explosive striking. The modified armlock later known as the “Passion Lock” proved that his submission skills were no longer secondary. Pacio was becoming dangerous wherever the fight moved.
He eventually defeated Naito in their rematch to capture the strawweight championship. The belt did not remain with him uninterrupted, but that became part of Pacio’s story. He repeatedly lost the title, adjusted, and returned to reclaim it.
The Saruta rivalry helped shape Pacio’s championship legacy
Yosuke Saruta handed Pacio another painful setback by edging him in a close split decision. The defeat cost Pacio the championship, but the response was immediate and violent.
In the rematch, Pacio knocked Saruta out and took the title back. Their third meeting ended even more decisively, with Pacio landing a first-round knockout to close the rivalry and retain the strawweight crown.
Those fights captured what made Pacio so difficult to remove from the top of the division. He did not need to pretend his losses had never happened. He studied them, changed specific details and returned with answers.
Championship victories over Rene Catalan and Alex Silva further strengthened his reign. Catalan was submitted, while Silva forced Pacio into a difficult technical fight against one of the division’s most accomplished grapplers. By then, Pacio was no longer simply an exciting Filipino prospect. He had become the fighter every strawweight in ONE Championship was chasing.
Jarred Brooks changed the direction of Pacio’s career
The rivalry with Jarred Brooks became the most important chapter of Pacio’s career.
Their first meeting at ONE 164 ended with Brooks winning a unanimous decision and taking the strawweight title. The American’s wrestling, pressure and confidence disrupted Pacio over five rounds. Fans can revisit that beginning in Jarred Brooks vs Joshua Pacio I.
The rematch at ONE 166 ended almost immediately when Brooks used an illegal slam and was disqualified. Pacio officially regained the championship, but the result settled very little. He had the belt again without receiving the clean victory he wanted.
That finally changed at ONE 171. Brooks controlled much of the opening round and repeatedly threatened submissions, but Pacio survived. In the second round, the Filipino champion reversed the momentum, attacked with ground strikes and forced the stoppage.
It was the defining win of the trilogy. Pacio had already shown that he could regain a title after defeat. This time, he proved that he could survive Brooks’ strongest positions and finish the opponent who had caused him the most problems.
The move to flyweight ended in a difficult loss
After unifying the strawweight championship, Pacio looked toward a larger challenge. He moved up to face Yuya Wakamatsu at ONE 173, hoping to become a two-division ONE MMA world champion.
The attempt did not go as planned. Wakamatsu’s speed and power became increasingly difficult to manage, and the Japanese champion finished Pacio by second-round TKO.
The result did not erase Pacio’s strawweight legacy, but it showed the danger of moving into a division where the opponents are naturally larger and physically stronger. Pacio had previously discussed possible flyweight fights and other new challenges, a subject explored in Joshua Pacio Eyes Flyweight Move.
His broader reflections on the championship years and what may still come next can also be found in Joshua Pacio Reflects on His Strawweight Legacy.
Mansur Malachiev gets a second shot at Pacio
Pacio now returns to his strongest division at ONE Friday Fights 161 and The Inner Circle 21. He will defend the strawweight MMA world championship against Mansur Malachiev in Bangkok on July 10.
The two first met at ONE Fight Night 15. Malachiev entered unbeaten and brought the suffocating wrestling expected from a high-level Dagestani grappler. Pacio survived the takedowns, kept working through difficult positions and earned a hard-fought unanimous decision.
That remains the only loss of Malachiev’s professional career. He now gets another opportunity in Joshua Pacio vs Mansur Malachiev 2, this time with the ONE strawweight title at stake.
The rematch should test how much both fighters have changed since 2023. Malachiev knows he can put Pacio on the ground, but the first fight showed that controlling him is not the same as breaking him. Pacio, meanwhile, must prove that the move to flyweight and the loss to Wakamatsu have not interrupted his championship rhythm.
The card also features Filipino legend Eduard Folayang returning against Shozo Isojima in Folayang vs Isojima, giving the event another major Philippines-versus-Japan matchup.
Pacio’s highlight reel already contains enough championship moments for several careers. The next question is whether he can add another successful title defence against the one contender who has already pushed him through three exhausting rounds.
