A couple of hours before the weigh-in, we spoke to ONE Fighting Championship's headliner, Ole Laursen as he was cutting the last few pounds for his lightweight bout against Felipe Enomoto.
He has always been one of the bigger lightweights in the region, but couple that with an absence from fighting since October of 2010, and it made this cut a bit tougher than usual. The Filipino-Danish fighter talked about the experience, and finally getting a chance to be fighting again.
"It's been a while since I have gone down as far as 70 kgs, probably K-1 Max back in 2007. All of my fights for Martial Combat were at around 73 kgs." Laursen said after making the lightweight limit on the unofficial weigh-in earlier today, "I was sitting in the sauna and considering taking the 20% cut but I thought 'no way I need that money'. I feel fine now, and I will be 100% by fight night."
"This is the longest break I have had from fighting since my career began, it's been a long time since my last fight in 2010. It just feels natural to be fighting though because I'm always taking fighters to events anyway so it just feels like this is my turn," he continued, referring to providing guys like Wadson Teixeira and others chances to fight for top promotions in Asia.
It's been a year and four months since the Martial Combat Super-Fight champ competed, and while there's a lot at steak as his headlining bout in Jakarta approaches, Laursen remains calm and confident that his skills match up very well against an opponent known for his ground skills.
"I watched a couple of Felipe Enomoto's fights. I'm not really nervous, I feel good," Laursen continues, "I'm a striker and that's what I do best but what the world doesn't know is that I have a ground game, I like to roll and I consider myself a grappler as well as a striker. I think I'm going to go in and try to keep it standing but if it goes to the ground, I know what's up."
Laursen recently opened up a gym in the world famous beach in Boracay, Philippines, and he has been training with a couple of experts on the ground to help him prepare for Enomoto.
"I've been working with (URCC Champion) Froilan Sarenas and Eduardo Bezerra, I had a good group of guys helping me. I have been training hard in Boracay for two months, twice a day, six times a week" Laursen says, talking about working with two BJJ experts in his recently opened gym in the famous beach in the Philippines.
While he has lacked motivation in the past that has cost him getting into more danger than he has to, Laursen says this definitely won't be an issue on this camp.
"I need that motivation, nothing gets me fired up more that having someone who is a well known badass in front of me, so I know I have to be all I can be to beat this guy. I'm finding on the main event for ONE FC tomorrow night and I don't need any more motivation than that"