With Japeth Aguilar in her corner, Ana Julaton scores UD win in ONE FC: Warrior's Way
As Filipina Ana Julaton battled against Walaa Abbas of Egypt in their flyweight bout in the undercard of ONE FC: Warrior’s Way Friday night, the Mall of Asia Arena crowd suddenly began chanting an all-too-familiar battle cry.
Chants of “Gi-ne-bra! Gi-ne-bra! Gi-ne-bra!” reverberated from the stands, in reference to the PBA’s most popular ball club.
Barangay Ginebra, of course, wasn’t playing that night at the MOA Arena. The chants were for Julaton’s very tall cornerman, six-foot-ten power forward Japeth Aguilar.
Julaton survived a nasty cut and went on to defeat Abbas via unanimous decision to raise her MMA record to 2-1-0.
This isn’t the first time Julaton has enlisted a basketball player. In fact, Aguilar isn’t exactly the tallest cornerman who’s been in Julaton’s corner. He shares that distinction with former NBA center Ronnie Turiaf, who like Japeth stands six-foot-ten and who was part of the Filipina’s entourage for her bout against Aya Saeid Saber in her ONE FC debut last May.
When asked why she had a hoops player in her corner for the second time, Julaton said "because Japeth's the best. He's here to support me. This adds a different element to the fight game.”
Julaton also revealed that Turiaf called her up before her fight to wish her luck. And if she gets her way, we might soon see a twin tower combination backing her up.
“Maybe next time we can have both of them in my corner."
