TEAM Lakay head coach Mark Sangiao has been coaching for more than a decade now, but he admits that handling different personalities in Globe’s ONE Warrior Series Philippines was challenging. After all, the 16 warriors battling for a US$100,000 contract to compete in ONE Championship aren’t necessarily spring chickens – most of them are battle-tested in local and international circuits, just waiting for their break to make it to the big stage.
Sangiao on ONE Warriors series bets
The soft-spoken mentor shared some of the roadblocks they faced while filming the show, and based on his stories, things got quite testy.
“They say patience is a virtue. When it comes to my experience, of course it was hard to handle different characters,” he said.
“There are characters there that are strategists, meaning because they’re so good at strategizing, they tend to get lazy. Some also have a little bit of attitude, wherein they’ll try to disrupt the entire team.
“I’ve been coaching for years; I know how to handle it. Through experience, we’ve found a solution to that.”
Surely, it was a change of pace for Sangiao, who’s never had a problem with the athletes on his Team Lakay roster.
As the captain, Sangiao has instilled the values of humility and improvement, and it’s evident with how successful his squad became not only in ONE Championship but in other promotions outside of it.
Being the experienced coach that he is, he knew exactly what to do to instill some humility in these newer guys on the TV show.
“Sometimes, people will come in and think that it’s easy, but they go to the gym, they go to the mountains, they train with us, they try our ‘superman run,’ then they realize that being a martial artist and representing the Philippines in an international arena isn’t easy,” he said.
“So the lesson for them is, they have to be humble so they can win this competition and reach their dreams.”
The next big Filipino superstar is set to be revealed at ONE Warrior Series Philippines, which airs every Sunday beginning on 18 September at 9:35 PM on GTV, watch.onefc.com, and the ONE Super App.
Replays and recaps of each show will air on the ONE Championship Philippines Facebook page.
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