Eduard “Landslide” Folayang’s return to Manila was a dampener after he lost by second round TKO to Edson Marques in the lead card of ONE Fight Night 5: De Ridder vs. Malykhin last Saturday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The former ONE Lightweight World Champion actually looked fluid on his feet, landing beautiful body punches and leg kicks to frustrate the Brazilian striker for most of the first round.
However, all it took was just one solid punch from Marques in the second round to put down Folayang and end the fight for good for the Filipino in the 2:53 mark of the second round.
With Folayang swarming after landing a few solid body punches, Marques showed great composure as he stepped back and connected on a beautiful right hook right on the Filipino’s chin and the Team Lakay star dropped face first on the canvas.
While he did recover quickly, referee Olivier Coste felt that Folayang falling flat was enough for him to stop the bout.
“[I was] going into a clinch, and then ita-try ko rin sanang going into my right then nasabayan ako ng suntok. Pero hindi, hindi naman ako na-blanko eh. I think napasubsob lang talaga ako,” Folayang said.
“Then, I immediately got up kasi kung nahilo talaga ako dun, nablanko. Hindi. I can still recall tapos I think napaaga masyado yung ano, yung pag-stop.”
Folayang however, has no qualms about the decision.
“Wala naman, I think nagawa na yung decision eh. It was [heat of the] moment pero nagawa na yung decision, it’s very difficult para habulin.”
Folayang (22-13) has now lost his last five fights and seven of his last eight. Marques improved to 11-2.
Fortunately for the Philippines, the Filipinas took care of business in their respective bouts.
No. 3-ranked atomweight Denice Zamboanga made her Philippine debut with ONE in style after a hard-earned split decision victory over dangerous Chinese striker Lin Heqin.
With a lot of people expecting her to wrestle against Lin, Zamboanga turned to her refined striking to hurdle the Chinese knockout artist and get back to winning ways after dropping consecutive losses to Ham Seo Hee.
Filipino-American striking sensation Jackie Buntan also finally had her moment in the country as she outpointed Amber Kitchen in a catchweight Muay Thai bout to also get back to winning ways.