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Folayang retains lightweight title; Team Lakay sweeps One Championship card

One Championship
By JP Abcede

PASAY--Eduard Folayang successfully defended the One Championship lightweight championship after securing a unanimous decision victory over Ev Ting at One: Kings of Destiny at the MOA Arena on Friday.

Folayang thwarted any attempt by his Malaysian opponent to slug it out on the middle of the octagon by clinching Ting while delivering knees to the challenger’s side. Although “ET” had moments where he occasionally tagged the champion, the Baguio native fought from a distance with kicks to the thighs, once scoring with a spinning elbow at the fifth round to the delight of the crowd.

This is Folayang’s first defense of his One belt, as well as his fourth straight victory after incurring a loss to Timofey Nastyukhin in the same venue in 2014. “Landslide” improves his MMA record to 18 wins and five losses.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Team Lakay camp emerged victorious on that night as Kevin Belingon won via stoppage over a bloodied Toni Tauru of Finland at the first round, while Honorio Banario knocked out Jaroslav Jartim with a combination to the body and then to the head at the second round.

“Things happen,” Banario said after he was asked about his grappling, which he was supposed to showcase in that contest but it was his bread-and-butter striking that delivered him his 12th win in 18 bouts.

Also, Danny Kingad had a similar unanimous decision conquest over Muhammad Aiman of Malaysia, completing a 5-0 sweep by the renowned MMA stable.


The rest of the main card had Christian Lee of Singapore forcing the referee to stop his fight against Wan Jianping of China at the first round due to strikes, Stefer Rahadrian of Indonesia outclassing Eugene Toquero of the Philippines with his octagon control for a UD victory, and Xie Bin of China choking out Chan Rothana of Cambodia at the second round.

Follow him on Twitter: @jpabcede