He was standing in the ring at Lumpinee Stadium when the announcer started speaking. He thought he was getting another bonus. Then the word “contract” landed. He still could not fully process it when he walked out.
Taiga “Black Samurai” Orii stopped Julian Mayorga via ground-and-pound TKO at 3:03 of the first round at The Inner Circle on June 5 at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, to claim the US$100,000 ONE Championship contract.
The 30-year-old Japanese fighter has now finished every opponent he has ever faced across his professional career, adding Mayorga to a list that includes Zar Mawia in his promotional debut in April.
Four years earlier, Orii had never thrown a serious punch in competition. He was working as a Japanese translator in Cebu, the Philippines, and wandered into an MMA gym out of curiosity. What followed was a 10-2 amateur record, three straight professional finishes, the Philippine Combat Championship Featherweight Title, and a ONE Championship debut that has now produced two wins and a contract in the span of eight weeks.
The origin of the whole thing traces back to a YouTube channel. Orii had a Japanese MMA fighter as an idol whose videos broke down technique between sparring sessions, and he described what those videos did to his understanding of the sport.
“MMA was just merely a hobby for me at the start. The reason why I started doing it is that I had always had an idol in Japan, who is a YouTuber and an MMA fighter,” he said.
“When I watched his YouTube videos every time after sparring, he always explained [different techniques of MMA], and that’s when I realized it really is something for smart people, it’s not just a street fight.”
Taiga Orii now has a contract and a bantamweight World Title in mind
Taiga Orii set modest goals when he started training. ONE Championship was not on the map. He described the ceiling he had placed on himself before results began to push it higher with every fight.
That ceiling moved fight by fight through the Philippine amateur circuit, then through three professional finishes, then through a contract announcement at Lumpinee Stadium that he barely believed when it arrived.
“For me, when I started training, fighting for an organization like ONE Championship was way above the sky. So, I didn’t even dream of it because it was too high a goal, and I just started three to four years ago,” he said.
“I still cannot believe that I earned the contract. I thought the announcer was saying something else, and I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, it’s another bonus.’ But when I heard it was the contract… Yeah, I just couldn’t believe it at that time. I’m really grateful for the opportunity. I will try my best to achieve my goals.”