Team Micronesia bags silver, bronze in WBC Muay Thai Pan-Am Champs

The CNMI’s very own Muay Thai team, under Saipan’s MCA-MMA Team Primeval, competed as Team Micronesia in the 2025 WBC Muay Thai Pan-American Championships in Monterrey, Mexico held last Feb. 13-16, and they did not disappoint as they brought home hardware in their international debut.

Coached by Dr. Tai Doram, 20-year-old Dillan Pomdi and 21-year-old Justin Agulto flew to Mexico to compete internationally featuring over 400 fighters from Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Chile, the United States, Italy, Ecuador, and Venezuela to name a few.

In the 54-58-kg division, Pomdi clinched the silver medal, while in the 60-63.5kg division, Agulto bagged a bronze medal.

Pomdi, who’s half Thai and half Carolinian, said that the experience was new. “I’m used to having one fight out of how many months. But with this competition we had three fights in three days. But my partner, Justin Agulto, had two fights in one day and had a one-hour break, so I give him props to that—he’s a beast. For myself, I had three fights in three days.”

Talking about his matches, he said, “I knew after my first fight, these guys were here to fight because no one was backing down… They kicked a lot more and they came out a lot more aggressive.”

What kept him going, he said, was the support of his team and coaches. “It just kept me energized and wanting to fight a lot more,” he said. “It was my first time going the whole distance. When I fought here [on Saipan], I had two knockouts, but when I went out there, I went the whole three rounds of two minutes each in each fight.”

Going out there, he said his goal was to reach the gold, but everyone else was also striving for it, so, “sometimes, you got to be humble enough to know you’re living in someone else’s dreams. So, I’ll give him that. That day was his day. But accomplishing silver was definitely a great feeling. It had me a little bit emotional—not because I won silver, but because I lost gold and I knew I could do a lot better and I could get that first-place next time.”

Pomdi, who’s been practicing Muay Thai for about nine to 10 years now with Doram said, “It’s nice to see how much we’ve climbed the ladder in competitions. Instead of just in Trench Tech, we’re here competing in WBC.”

As for Agulto, he also said competing internationally made him emotional. “We come from a small island so being able to get on a stage like that where it’s an international competition and compete—to me, it was a great experience. I started training just for self defense, but now it’s like at a level where I can see myself competing out of the island.”

He said of his bronze medal, “I would never expect myself to be able to achieve that. It was a great experience, it was fun, and it was eye opening for me. So, this event actually motivated me to push for the next level. I see myself competing more later down the line.”

In his bronze medal matchup, he said, “I started off strong with leg kicks. I threw like three leg kicks and I noticed my opponent was already feeling damage on his leg. So throughout the whole fight, I was just attacking his left leg… the first, second, and third round, I was just kicking his leg… but he stayed in it through the whole three rounds so I give him props for that. But in the end, I was able to rack up all the points and basically outscore him.”

Doram, a behavior specialist with the CNMI Public School System, is the kru or teacher of the MCA-MMA gym on Saipan and has trained in Muay Thai since he was 7 years old. MCA-MMA also has a gym in Kentucky.

He said of the boys’ achievements, “there were over 400 athletes competing and no one expected us to do anything, but we went there and we really showed what we could do… it was a really excellent experience, so for us to be on this island—12 miles by five-miles, and go there and represent is really a humbling experience for us all.”

Along with the team’s hardware, Doram shared that his niece, Corey Storey, based in Hawaii, won gold and is the Pan-Am champion and U.S.A. women’s champion in Muay Thai.

After their successful debut, the team was invited to the World Muaythai Championships 2025 in Verona, Italy from June 25 to 29. “When we go there, we’re expecting to get a medal and this is against worldwide competition,” said Doram. “We’re preparing for it and they’re trying to heal up and get ready.”

With Agulto and Pomdi getting ready for this summer’s competition is 22-year-old Thomas Agulto and 18-year-old Grachen Jhoy Pintor.

For that event, Doram said they’re trying to fund-raise for it. “We’re looking for participation with funding. The team is training to make sure we’re able to get there and compete with the same intensity,” he said.

Doram then thanked the supporters who helped out with raising some funds for Mexico and said, “it was a little sad that we didn’t get the financial support from the island, but hopefully this time around, maybe some people will take an interest in us and we can get a little bit more support. But thank you to everybody that participated. Also a professor at the college—Jesse Pangelinan, he came through for us as well and he trains with us—and just a few others who came out and supported us.”

The team trains out of the MCA-MMA Team Primeval Gym located in the building behind Naked Fish in Garapan. The gym was founded in 2011 by Doram, who moved to Saipan for work on a two-year contract and has stayed here since then.