ONE Fight Night 16: Ayaka Miura says much-needed win over Meng Bo marked a ‘special day’ in her career

At ONE Fight Night 16, Ayaka Miura made a long overdue return to the win column by racking up yet another trademark submission victory inside the Circle.

After a great start to her career in ONE Championship where she demonstrated her dangerous submission skills from her Judo background, the Japanese competitor had hit a rough patch.

Losing back-to-back fights in MMA, the 33-year-old knew how important this next fight would be for her stock in the promotion.

Whilst a loss to Danielle Kelly in a brief foray into submission grappling is nothing to worry about, neither is being defeated by the ONE strawweight world champion Xiong Jing Nan, Miura only had winning on her mind for her return.

At the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, she did just that, needing just over two minutes to close the show on her opponent, Meng Bo.

Immediately after the fight, you could see how much this victory in particular meant to her in what has clearly been a very high-pressure training camp and fight week.

During her post-fight press conference, Ayaka Miura revealed that her overall emotion at the time was catharsis after she returned to the win column:

“I’m really relieved.”

‘Zombie’ elaborated on her feelings, talking about the meaning of getting a victory on this night and how much it means to her to be back on the right path in ONE Championship:

“Because I couldn’t win for so long, and I’m really happy that I was able to get the victory today. I needed to win this fight, and it’s my 10-year anniversary today since I debuted as a professional fighter. Today is a special day and today has a lot of meaning, so after the win, I jumped to my coach [in joy].”

Watch the full post-fight press conference below:

North American viewers with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action from ONE Fight Night 16 via the free event replay.