Joshua Pacio didn’t need three rounds this time. At Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok on Friday, the ONE Championship strawweight king closed the book on his rivalry with Mansur Malachiev in exactly 4 minutes and 23 seconds, sinking a rear-naked choke from his back to end The Inner Circle 21’s main event and retain his title.
The stoppage mattered as much as the scoreline. When Pacio and Malachiev first met in October 2023 at ONE Fight Night 15, Pacio won by unanimous decision in a fight tight enough that it lingered as unfinished business for both camps. That victory handed the previously unbeaten Malachiev the first loss of his career, yet it did little to settle who the better fighter actually was. Friday’s rematch removed the ambiguity. There were no scorecards to argue about, no judges to second-guess. Malachiev went to sleep, and the referee waved it off.
How it happened
True to form, Malachiev tried to make this a wrestling match from the opening seconds. The Russian has built his career on smothering opponents against the fence and on the mat, and he wasted no time hunting a takedown against the champion. He got it, and for a moment it looked like the blueprint that had given Pacio trouble in their first fight was working again.
Instead, the position flipped fast. Working from underneath, Pacio fought off the top pressure, found an angle on Malachiev’s neck, and began cranking the choke tighter with every second that passed. Malachiev never tapped. He simply stopped moving, and the referee stepped in as soon as he recognized the fighter had gone unconscious. It was a finish built on defense turning into offense, the kind of scramble that separates a good grappler from a champion who can win from the worst spot on the mat.
The result pushed Pacio’s professional record to 24-5 and stretched his hold on the strawweight throne, a title he has now carried through multiple eras of ONE’s 115-pound division after first winning it back in 2019 and reclaiming it in the years since. Full details and highlights from the card are available through ONE Championship’s official recap.
Why the rematch carried weight
Rematches in combat sports rarely erase doubt on their own. A split decision run back can end the same way and leave fans exactly where they started. What made Friday different is that Pacio didn’t lean on the judges at all. He absorbed the one gameplan Malachiev has used to trouble strawweights across the region, survived the moment it looked most dangerous, and turned it into the finish. That is a different kind of statement than a decision win, and it is why ONE was comfortable billing this as the fight that would settle their series for good.
It also reinforces how differently title reigns get measured across MMA promotions. A champion’s résumé isn’t just about win totals, it is about who they beat, how, and under what pressure. For a broader look at how governing bodies and matchmakers decide who deserves a shot at gold in the first place, our explainer on how UFC rankings and title shots actually work breaks down the process that, with local variations, mirrors how most major MMA organizations build their contender pools. And for context on what a genuinely long championship run looks like across the sport, see our rundown of the longest title reigns in UFC history.
Pacio’s night in Bangkok did not just settle a personal rivalry. It gave the strawweight division a cleaner picture of its hierarchy heading into the back half of 2026, with the champion once again the one dictating where that division goes next. Fans looking for more coverage of Friday’s card and the rest of the sport can follow our Combat Sports hub for continuing updates.
