Baguio MMA fighters shine in One Fighting Championship

QUEZON CITY – By winning their respective bouts, Baguio mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters Eduard Folayang, Eric Kelly and Honorio Banario scored separate victories to highlight the country’s campaign in One Fighting Championship (One FC) dubbed “Pride of a Nation” at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Malaysian-based Eric Kelly had the biggest win of the night for the Baguio boys after demolishing former UFC champion Jens Pulver in knocking the MMA legend in the second round that finished the fight early.

“I was connecting my shots, I thought I can knock him out in the first round,” said an ecstatic Kelly in a post fight interview.

Folayang meanwhile showed why he still remains as Asia’s best lightweight MMA fighter, after scoring a third round unanimous victory over Felipe Enomoto of Japan.

The 28-year-old Folayang worked on early in his game plan engaging Enomoto in a striking game with both fighters connecting; but Folayang scored the more telling blows against his opponent.

In the 2nd round, the two time Southeast Asian Games gold medalist became more aggressive with his stand-up and striking game pulling out the ground game of the CFC-Euro Champion, although Enomoto tried to recover in the third round by trying to pull down the Universal Reality Combat Championship (URCC) welterweight champion.

“Felipe is a tough fighter. I wanted to finish him early but he just won’t back down,” said Folayang.

Fellow Team Lakay Honorio Banario opened the campaign for the Baguio-bred fighters with a three round knockout of another Filipino featherweight Andrew Benibe with his flurry of punches and kicks.

Banario took an early control of the fight landing some leg kicks and vicious combinations that kept Benibe on defense mode.

The URCC lightweight champion was unstoppable in the second round with his 1-2 punch combinations that snapped the head of Benibe several times including power kick to the body that almost sent him to the floor.

With his superb striking skills, Banario finally took out Benibe with 1:13 remaining in the third round.

Kevin Belingon was unlucky however, after he lost in a unanimous decision over Korean Soo Chul Kim who had a bigger height advantage and has a better ground game than the URCC flyweight champion.

OneFC’s next event will take place live at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on 6 October. (Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)