Nico Carrillo’s Dream Becomes Reality At ONE Fight Night 40: “I Showed That I Can Beat These Thais At Their Own Style”
After years of visualization, after countless rounds imagining this exact moment, Nico Carrillo finally wrapped his hands around championship gold at ONE Fight Night 40 – and the first person he thought about wasn’t standing in his corner.
“Yeah, it’s been a dream of mine to have my wife here. I told my wife, one day I’m going to take her out of her job so she wouldn’t have to work anymore,” Carrillo said moments after his unanimous decision victory over Shadow Singha Mawynn crowned him ONE Interim Featherweight Muay Thai World Champion. “And that was the dream today, one day, and it came true.”
That dream fueled the Scot through five brutal rounds inside Bangkok’s Lumpinee Stadium on February 13. Shadow controlled the early action with surgical precision, landing leg kicks and a staggering left hook that had Carrillo on the defensive. The gameplan was simple but essential: hurt and move, avoid the Thai striker’s devastating low kicks.
“First thing he threw was a low kick — I was nowhere to be seen,” Carrillo explained. “I wasn’t guarding properly when I went to throw the body hook. So it was a nice [punch] that landed. But after I got caught with that, I made the adjustments to not let that happen again.”
The adjustments came in championship rounds neither man had experienced before in ONE. Carrillo dropped Shadow with his signature right hand in the fourth – the same punch they’d drilled in the warm-up, timed perfectly as Shadow threw his right kick. The knockdown shifted momentum permanently.
“I focused on not going for the finish straight away. If it came, it came. But we trained for five rounds,” Carrillo said. “As you can see, my conditioning was amazing. I’ve never gone five f*cking rounds hard as I fought, and fresh as I am. No one trains as hard as me.”
That conditioning carried him through the fifth, where he stalked a fading Shadow around the ring, landing combinations at will. The Thai’s toughness surprised even the new champion.
“I think he really, really tried 100 percent to stand there with me. So, hats off to him,” Carrillo said. “As a person, I’ve always liked him and he’s a great person. But now, as a fighter, I think he’s hard as nails.”
The victory pushed Carrillo’s record to 30-4 and validated his decision to abandon bantamweight – a weight class he swears he couldn’t make “if I chopped my leg off.” More importantly, it proved something doubters questioned: that he could match elite Thais in their own backyard, at their own game.
“I think everyone knows I’m tough, but I think today I showed that I can beat these Thais at their own style,” Carrillo declared.
Next up: a unification showdown with divisional king Tawanchai PK Saenchai once the champion returns from injury. But for now, the “King of the North” savors a reality that finally matches the vision – championship gold around his waist, his wife in his corner, and a dream fulfilled.
“Alba gu braith,” Carrillo said to his Scottish faithful. Scotland forever, indeed.
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