Robin Catalan could not replicate his performance last January, as the Ilonggo was overwhelmed by hometown favorite Pongsiri Mitsatit, Friday evening during ONE: Warriors of Light at the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand.
Catalan, who fell to 8-6, suffered a crushing knee to the body that resulted in a first-round knockout loss just three minutes and five seconds into the bout.
On the other hand, Mitsatit picked up his first win since November 2017 to go up to 10-2.
It was not just Catalan who went home empty-handed on Friday. Mixed martial artist Mark Abelardo and kickboxer Panicos Yusuf also failed to come up with victory.
Fil-Kiwi Abelardo could not weather the storm caused by debuting Japanese veteran Shoko Sato.
Following a fierce first round which saw Abelardo come out of the gates aggressively, Sato turned up the heat in the second. He took Abelardo to the mat and finished him off with strikes from the top.
With Abelardo offering no defense, referee Yoshinori Umeki was forced to call a halt to the contest in the second round, awarding Sato with the technical knockout victory with 3:14 left in the stanza.
Abelardo fell to 19-6, while his opponent climbed to 32-16.
Fil-Cypriot Yusuf, whose mother is Filipino, was handed a unanimous decision loss by China’s Zhang Chenglong in a back-and-forth kickboxing bout.
It was a furious pace from start to end, as both Zhang and Yusuf unloaded their best strikes for the duration of the bout.
In the third round, Zhang dropped Yusuf twice and nearly finished the Cypriot, but Yusuf survived to the final bell.
