World taekwondo champ, MMA promoter get award

The year 2012 proved a very fruitful one for Cebuano martial arts promoters and martial artists for coming up with big promotions and winning international accolades.

Two of them who shone the brightest in this field are MMA promoter Victor Cui and taekwondo jin Mikaela Calamba.

The 15-year old Calamba, a comely junior high school student of the University of San Carlos (USC) made history last year after winning the Philippines’ lone gold medal in the 7th World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships.

Calamba won the gold medal in the freestyle female category beating Tuyet Can Chau of Vietnam. She also added a bronze medal in the team event.

Cui on the other hand, owns the biggest MMA promotions in Asia — the One Fighting Championships (ONE FC) which also feature Filipino and Asian fighters. Cui was also named the No. 1 man in MMA Asia in a recent international poll.

Due to Cui’s untiring work, Filipino MMA fighters were able to make their mark in the international stage like Honorio Banario, the reigning One FC Featherweight champion.

Cui and Calamba’s sterling achievements will be rightly recognized in the upcoming 31st SAC-SMC Cebu Sports Awards on March 17 at the Northwing of SM City Cebu where they are two of the major awardees.

As a major awardee, Calamba is an automatic contender for the coveted Athlete of the Year award.

Meanwhile, Universal Reality Combat Championships (URCC) Visayas Bantamweight champion Carry “The Prince” Bullos along with the YawYan ArDigma Cebu and judoka Joaquin Fernandez will receive special citations for their outstanding achievements in their respective sports.

Bullos successfully defended his URCC Visayas Bantamweight title by knocking out visiting Japanese Hideo “Death From Tokyo” Morikawa in the main event of a fight card held at J Center Mall.

YawYan ArDigma is cited for being the first Cebu-based MMA promotions to hold two title fights last year while Fernandez is cited for winning Cebu City’s only gold medal in the judo competition of last year’s Philippine National Games in Dumaguete City by ruling the -66kg category.

The upcoming SAC-SMB awards will be attended by Cebu’s top performing athletes of 2012.