Lito Adiwang had a huge size advantage against Hexigetu during their ONE: Revolution bout, Friday evening at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
During the first eight minutes of the bout, the Team Lakay standout was throwing an array of highlight-worthy kicks – including a flying kick and a jumping knee.
In his first bout since January of this year, Adiwang wanted to impress.
Photo from ONEFC.com
“I’m quite disappointed after the fight because I imagined a lot of scenarios that I can get a highlight KO,” he said. “It depends on who you fight, but he kept on running. Quite disappointed.
“I got one good shot when he went for a shoot, but my flying knee didn’t connect.”
But with Hexigetu struggling to find his range against a much-lankier opponent, the Chinese fighter tried to chop Adiwang down with leg kicks.
Unfortunately, it landed on where the sun doesn’t shine.
Late in the second round, a Hexigetu kick went array and connected on Adiwang’s groin area.
After a brief five-minute break, a second low blow connected. Then to begin the third round, another kick to the groin occurred.
Just how painful was it for Adiwang? Here’s how he explained it.
“Until now, I can feel it,” he said. “It’s different. You can train getting hit in the head and the body, but you can’t train for that.
“Down there it’s different, you can’t train for that.
“I’m quite frustrated with the three low blow strikes. It got me off my game. You’re trying to get some timing to explode but it got me distracted. Looking back, I can do better than that,” he continued.
Adiwang could have just laid on the mat and the fight would be sent to the judges’ scorecards. Definitely, it would have been a lopsided win for Adiwang.
But instead of doing that, Adiwang soldiered on. And it’s because of the fans watching from their homes and the small crowd inside the stadium.
Photo from ONEFC.com
“There was an instance where we can stop the fight but I did not want to disappoint the fans. It was quite painful during the fight,” said Adiwang, who eventually landed the win that puts him back into title contention.
“It’s just that the main thing on my mind is that I did not want to disappoint the crowd. If I was watching there, I don’t want to stop it right there. We are warriors so we can deal with it.”
One thing is for certain, Adiwang will have to ice that region of his body tonight.
