Filipina fighters Denice Zamboanga and Jackie Buntan took hard-earned victories in the ONE Fight Night 5: De Ridder vs. Malykhin on Saturday at the Mall of Asia Arena in the Philippines.
The third-ranked atomweight Zamboanga made her Philippine debut with ONE in style after a tough, split decision win 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 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.
Meanwhile, Eduard “Landslide” Folayang’s return to Manila took a dampener, dropping a second-round TKO loss to Edson Marques in the lead card.
The former ONE Lightweight World Champion actually looked fluid on the 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 at 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 as 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.”
