By lifting each other up, we lift ourselves up
The last time Eduard Folayang fought on home soil, the Philippine mixed martial arts legend suffered a heartbreaking knockout loss at the hands of Martin Nguyen. Moreover, he lost his one coveted possession: the ONE Lightweight World Championship.
Having experienced how dangerous the Vietnamese-Australian is, the elder statesman in the Team Lakay camp gladly helped with the preparations of Kevin Belingon, as he was set to face Nguyen for the interim ONE Bantamweight World Championship.
“Talagang we help each other out. Kung ano yung puwede namin ibigay na advice o time sa kasama namin, ibibigay namin,” shared Folayang.
“Yun yung pinaghahandaan namin, yung wrestling at grappling,” added Belingon.
In return, the rest of the stable helped Folayang for his bout against Aziz Pahrudinov, a Russian fighter who owned a 20-0 record prior to making his ONE Championship debut.
The results were dominant outings by Folayang and Belingon.
Folayang (20-6) peppered his opponent’s leg en route to a unanimous decision win Friday night during ONE: Reign of Kings, exorcising the ghost of his last loss in Manila. For his part, Belingon dominated Nguyen to secure a unification bout against reigning Bantamweight kingpin Bibiano Fernandes.
The result of the main event did not come as a surprise for the former world champion, who disclosed that he had called it months prior to the bout.
“You can see that we worked very hard nad smart on our preparation,” shared the Baguio-native.
“Masasayang masaya ako kasi na-predict ko na yan noon pa. Talagang mananalo si Kevin.”
With this, the Team Lakay camp now has two belts. And Folayang is confident that he and the rest of the camp will cop the rest in the near future.
“This is one of our memorable moments for our team kasi malapit na yata namin makuha lahat.”
