MANILA, Philippines – Two Filipino fighters failed to hoist the Philippine flag at ONE Championship’s “Pride of Lions” event on Friday, November 13, at the 12,000-capacity Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore.
URCC Cebu alumnus Jimmy Yabo (4-2, 1 NC) yielded to Singaporean featherweight Amir Khan (4-2) via first-round technical knockout on the affair's main card.
Khan, who was coming off a split decision setback to Shannon Wiratchai this past May, returned to his winning ways by finishing Yabo at the 4:18 mark of the opening salvo with a vicious ground-and-pound.
The 21-year-old product of Singapore-based Evolve MMA came out like a wild ox as he clinched onto Yabo’s neck and pummeled his cage counterpart’s midsection with snapping knees.
As Yabo created space to avoid a close-quartered exchanges, the 34-year-old Cebuano was able to drop Khan to the canvas with a sneaky left hand.
However, Khan secured a takedown and quickly placed himself in the mount position to rain down punches to compel referee Yuji Shimada to wave it off.
Yabo lost his second-straight outing inside the ONE cage since making his promotional debut in April.
Meanwhile, Edward Kelly (6-3) succumbed to a first-round stoppage defeat to Australian combatant Martin Nguyen (5-1) on the preliminary card of ONE: Pride of Lions.
Nguyen exploited Kelly’s poor grappling pedigree and ground game by scoring two double-leg takedowns and maintaining a superb top control that allowed him to slice his opponent’s forehead with crisp left elbows.
As Nguyen’s elbow shots created a gory gash on Kelly’s head, referee Olivier Coste halted the contest at 4:17 of round one as per cageside physician’s advice.– Rappler.com