As a small boy, Vicente Pajaro would watch kung fu movies and dream of the day where he would have a chance to train with Bruce Lee. Though he would later realize his hero had long since passed away, watching Lee’s genius and philosophy led him to pursue training in a number of martial arts before settling on a form indigenous to the Philippines: Sayaw ng Kamatayan, often known by its short form, Hybrid Yaw-Yan.
On January 11, the sole Filipino competitor and the only Hybrid Yaw-Yan athlete will compete in Legend’s co-main event against former King of Sanda, Zhao Zilong of China. It will be a contest of different styles that both focus on heavy striking, with both men likely to look for a knockout.
The former heavyweight champion of the Philippines’ Universal Reality Combat Championship (URCC) credits his commitment to Hybrid Yaw-Yan for his success as co-owner and instructor at the Hybrid Yaw-Yan MMA Training Center in Quezon City.
Hybrid Yaw-Yan incorporates elements of several other martial arts, including kickboxing, grappling, and Modern Arnis, a Filipino martial art which teaches both armed and unarmed combat. As a stand-up martial art, it resembles Muay Thai, although Hybrid Yaw-Yan places more emphasis on ranged attack techniques as opposed to the clinch-focused Muay Thai style.
URCC founder and MMA athlete Alvin Aguilar believes that Pajaro will have the edge: “Vicente’s Hybrid Yaw-Yan training is much better adapted to the all-round competition style required in MMA than Zilong’s stand-up focused Sanda, and Vicente will probably take him down a couple of times to wear him out before finishing the fight. Vicente is also coming off a tough loss and will be looking to make a statement in his match with Zilong.”
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