ONE Championship 39 results: 'Sapo' Santos wins with perfect knee, soccer kicks

Luis Santos and Rafael Silva

With more than 100 combined pro MMA victories, today’s ONE Championship 39 welterweight main event between Luis Santos and Rafael Silva was the definition of a veteran showdown. It didn’t last long, though.

Santos (62-9-1) proved to be the much more dangerous fighter at this point in his career, though. He needed just 77 seconds to put Silva (40-16) away for his 36th knockout win.

A perfectly placed knee to the body from badly hurt Silva and dropped him to the mat during one of the very first exchanges of the fight. From there, “Sapo” took at advantage of the ONE Championship rule set and blasted his grounded opponent with two vicious soccer kicks for the stoppage.

Here’s the stoppage (via Twitter):

It was simple work for Santos, who pushed his unbeaten streak to nine in the online pay-per-view headliner at Istora Senayan in Jakarta, Indonesia. Silva fell to 0-3 in ONE Championship competition.

Santos needed a strong performance in the worst of ways after a scheduled November title fight with champ Ben Askren was scrapped at the last minute after Santos failed to make weight.

The Brazilian said he realizes he made a mistake and is eager to redeem himself. The victory over Silva was a start, and now Santos is ready to take on anyone that stands in the way of another shot against Askren.

“I trained very hard to focus on this fight, and that was the result,” Santos said through an interpreter after the fight. “I made a mistake in the last fight, but I’m ready to fight again. It doesn’t matter who is the next one, I’ll be ready.”

Boku continues to flourish late in career

A weight-class change continued to pay off for Kotetsu Boku (25-10-2). He earned his third consecutive victory since dropping to featherweight when he stopped Vincent Latoel (16-17-2) with second-round strikes after a relentless beating from mount.

Boku had to work to get the finish. Latoel inflicted some solid damage with the help of punches and leg kicks. Fortunately for Boku, who’s never been knocked out, his chin again held up.

After a high-paced opening round, both fighters appeared to feel the effects. Latoel went back to throwing leg kicks early, but Boku had an answer. He changed course to grappling with a takedown and once on top, the finish was imminent.

Boku controlled Latoel from mount and threw an endless amount of ground-and-pound strikes until the referee awarded Boku the TKO win at the 4:04 mark of Round 2.

Although Boku is 38 and has nearly 15 years of pro experience, he’s arguably in his finest form to date and is on his first three-fight winning streak since 2010. Latoel, on the other hand, has dropped three of his past four contests.

Prachino thwarts Machado’s grappling before TKO

Heavyweight Marcin Prachino (10-2) proved his karate background was superior to the highly regarded grappling of Alexandre Machado (7-3) when he picked up a first-round TKO victory.

Prachino came forward aggressively after the opening bell and was clearly headhunting for the knockout. Machado took advantage of that aggression and put the action on the ground after a missed head kick, but he couldn’t keep Prachino on his back.

After patiently working his way back upright, Prachino got some space on the feet and unloaded with a flurry of strikes that hurt Machado and led to a stop to the fight at the 2:44 mark of Round 1.

Full ONE Championship 39 results include:

• Trestle Tan vs. Djatmiko Waluyo
• Anthony Engelen def. Rocky Tune Batolbatol via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1
• Luis Santos def. Rafael Silva via TKO (knee, soccer kicks) – Round 1, 1:17
• Kotetsu Boku def. Vincent Latoel via TKO (strikes) – Round 2, 4:04
• Marcin Prachino def. Alexandre Machado via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 2:44
• Andrew Leone def. Koetsu Okazaki via unanimous decision
• Angela Lee def. Rebecca Heintzman via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 1:08
• Jimmy Yabo def. Bashir Ahmad via knockout (punch) – Round 1, 0:21
• Yohan Mulia Legowo vs. Mario Wirawan via submission (guillotine choke) – Round 1, 1:44
• Hao Yi Jie def. Jerome S. Paye via unanimous decision

For more on ONE Championship 39, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.