{"id":213895,"date":"2015-11-06T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=213895"},"modified":"2015-11-06T06:00:28","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T20:00:28","slug":"duenas-eager-to-bounce-back-after-setbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/duenas-eager-to-bounce-back-after-setbacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Duenas eager to bounce back after setbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trench Tech Gym\u2019s Josh \u201cChaos\u201d Duenas is hoping that all his hard work would pay off when he makes his return inside the cage in the Pacific Xtreme Combat 50 on Dec. 4 at the University of Guam Calvo Fieldhouse in Mangilao.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/a>
Josh \u201cChaos\u201d Duenas is aiming to regain his winning form as he faces New Zealand\u2019s Cai Kara-France in next month\u2019s Pacific Xtreme Combat 50 in Guam. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Duenas (4-5 with 1 KO) did not fight for more than a year and will be facing a tall order when he goes up against New Zealand\u2019s Kai Cara-France (10-5, 5 KOs) of Tiger Muay Thai in one of the undercard fights.<\/p>\n

The last two years wasn\u2019t that good for Duenas as he lost two of his last three fights and was stripped of the flyweight belt after failing to make weight in his scheduled title defense against High Blood Pressure\u2019s Ernie Santos (2-1) of Guam in last year\u2019s Trench Warz 18: Rock & Rumble.<\/p>\n

Duenas said all of his past heartaches is his motivation to become one of the contenders for the 125-lb title.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not fight for one year and I was stripped of the Trench Warz flyweight belt for not making weight. These are my motivation in my bid to claim the PXC belt. I am more motivated to get back,\u201d Duenas told Saipan Tribune during a break at his training camp at the Trench Tech Gym.<\/p>\n

Duenas lost to Guam\u2019s McKlane Alfred (3-3) of Guahan Top Team in PXC 40 on Oct. 25, 2013, and Filipino Crisanto Pitpitunge (8-3) of Lakay MMA in PXC 44 in June last year that sandwiched his victory by armbar submission against stablemate Jordan Manglona (3-1).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PXC is a bigger stage since it also has Japanese, Korean, and Filipino fighters competing. It is rally competitive so you really need to be at your best and I want to stay confident,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Duenas said he prepared hard and is focused in winning against Kara-France. \u201cI watched some of his fights and I studied his every move. He is a stand up fighter, so I will just stick to my technique and my game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cara-France is on a three-fight winning streak after dropping two straight matches against Filipino superstar Mark \u201cMugen\u201d Striegl (14-1) and Australian Gustavo Falciroli (15-4, with 3 KOs) in separate fights last year.<\/p>\n

His last win was by way of technical knockout over Shantaram Maharaj of Australia in K-Oz Entertainment\u2019s Bragging Rights 7: Resurrection on Sept. 27.<\/p>\n

Duenas is not Cara-France\u2019s original opponent and will just be replacing fellow Trench Tech warrior Vince \u201cThe Clinch\u201d Masga (6-1).<\/p>\n

Masga was supposed to face Cara-France in the scheduled flyweight bout but the Saipan fighter suffered a concussion while in training.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trench Tech Gym\u2019s Josh \u201cChaos\u201d Duenas is hoping that all his hard work would pay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51,8002,2942,1289],"class_list":["post-213895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-guam","tag-josh-chaos-duenas","tag-pacific-xtreme-combat","tag-pxc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}