ONE Championship Fight Night 14: Allycia Rodrigues breaks down in tears after missing son’s birthday for title bout
- Rodrigues, ONE’s atomweight Muay Thai champ, makes huge sacrifice ahead of bid for second title in Singapore co-main event
- Brazilian ‘can’t wait to be back’ with two-year-old son – ‘hopefully holding new belt so we can take photos and be happy together’
Allycia Hellen Rodrigues has made a huge sacrifice ahead of her bid for a second Muay Thai title at this Saturday’s ONE Championship Fight Night 14 event in Singapore.
The Thailand-based Brazilian, who holds ONE’s atomweight Muay Thai title, is set to challenge Smilla Sundell for the promotion’s strawweight belt in the card’s co-main event.
It is an opportunity that required her to miss her son’s second birthday.
“I came with a lot of motivation, as you can see, because today is my son’s second birthday,” Rodrigues, 25, told the Post at the Copthorne King’s Hotel in Singapore on Wednesday, with tears trailing down her cheeks.
“It’s really hard to be away given everything we’ve been through and everything we have to go through, but this is my job. I love doing it and I’m extremely motivated.”
Rodrigues accepted the opportunity to fight the 18-year-old prodigy Sundell on relatively short notice, having stepped into the match-up on August 16 when the Swedish strawweight’s original opponent, Jackie Buntan, was forced off the card because of a family issue.
Despite the short time she has had to prepare, the atomweight champion feels well equipped for the task at hand.
