Jackie Buntan will be going for ONE Championship's inaugural Muay Thai strawweight title on April 22. Standing in her way is 17-year-old Swede Smilla Sundell.
Ahead of their title bout, ONE uploaded a video to its YouTube channel of Jackie Buntan's impressive run in the promotion.
Check out the video below:
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The Filipino-American is best known for being a technical wizard when it comes to Muay Thai. She has great footwork, evades strikes, and parries and counters perfectly. The video exemplifies her best moments in ONE.
Her debut in the promotion was against the more experienced Muay Thai fighter Wondergirl Fairtex. In this bout, she showed off her complete Muay Thai arsenal. Buntan dodged headkicks, landed combinations, evaded strikes and entered with authority. It was a masterclass. The highlight of the fight was when she dodged a right hand, stepped to the outside, and countered with a punch that knocked Wondergirl down. The California native won via unanimous decision.
Jackie Buntan's next fight in ONE Championship was at ONE on TNT 4 against the Belarussian Ekaterina Vandaryeva. 'Barbie' came into the fight with loads of experience in Muay Thai and kickboxing, plus a size advantage. Despite clearly being the physically smaller fighter, Buntan was still able to to dodge, evade and land authoritative strikes against her opponent in a decision win.
Another dominant performance for Buntan came in her third ONE Muay Thai fight. Like her previous two bouts, it was a decision win, this time against Argentina's Daniela López. Buntan landed punches at will and constantly stunned her opponent. Her quickness showed as she was able to enter, land combinations, and get out of range before her opponent could counter.
The 24-year-old had an incredibly impressive moment when she countered Lopez's elbow-punch combination and followed up with her own right-left hook combination that nearly dropped the Argentinian.
Buntan will put her skills to the test against Swedish knockout queen Smilla Sundell on April 22 at ONE: Eersel vs. Sadikovic.
Jackie Buntan says she is much better than Smilla Sundell
At just 17, Sundell has risen to the apex of Muay Thai, with many wins and knockouts in her wake. Yet, her next opponent Jackie Buntan says that she is still not on her level.
In an interview with ONE Championship, Buntan explained:
“I’ll say she’s good enough to be fighting in ONE Championship, but I really believe I’m levels ahead of her in technicality, intelligence, speed, power, and all that."
Jackie Buntan insists that Sundell's heavy knockout style of Muay Thai comes with a unique flaw. When they fight for the inaugural strawweight title on April 22, Buntan says she will find and exploit the holes in her opponent's style:
"That come-forward, aggression type of style, it’s a careless type of style. There’s going to be holes and I’m going to find those holes, basically. I’m more than ready for that pressure."
In just over a week, we will find out if Sundell's knockout style can hold up against Buntan's Muay Thai precision.