MMA fighter from Downey wins welterweight title

Photo by William Odis Martin.

DOWNEY — Downey mixed martial artist Jonathan O’Neill brought home the IFS Welterweight Championship Belt earlier this month in Anaheim in the most decisive and technically sound victory of his young career. 

It was his first win as an adult and it came against a seasoned and crafty veteran. O’Neill outmatched his opponent Jean Chancy forcing the referee to intervene and stop the match via technical knockout at 1:43 in just the second round. 

“Since this was my first fight as an 18-year-old, I knew I had to fight grown men. He was 36 and, at first, I was a little scared. But, as I got into better and better shape, I got a lot more confident,” said O’Neill. “I knew he threw a lot of leg kicks and ended up in the clinch a lot, so we primarily focused on blocking the kicks and countering. I didn’t think that I would have that much success in the clinch but it kept on landing so I didn’t stop.”

O’Neill dominated Chancy with a flurry of fists, elbows, knees and sweeping leg kicks. Although Chancy looked the part for flashes in the first, it seemed like by the second round he was the one scared and out of his league. 

O’Neill left the ring looking better than he did coming in, sporting a new belt and barely breaking a sweat in the process.

The Downey Patriot first spotlighted O’Neill back in November 2018 when he was just 16 years old. At the time he was training at King Cobra on Paramount Boulevard but has since moved on to Boxing Works in Torrance.

“I train six days a week if I have a fight or I’m just training. So every day of the year is fight camp. But I knew about this fight and trained specifically for him for about 6 weeks,” explained O’Neill.

O’Neill improved his record to 9-3 and hopes to keep up the momentum as he prepares for his next fight that will go down on March 20 in Anaheim. 

His next opponent, Raymond Tiscareno, will be representing Norwalk’s Dog Pound MMA next month at the M3Live event center.

For ticket information, visit the IFS website at https://ifspro.com/