Edward Kelly lived up to his nickname as ‘The Ferocious” after scoring a sensational TKO win over Sung Jong Lee at ONE: ROOTS OF HONOR last Friday, 12 April at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Kelly got the stoppage victory in the second round as he overwhelmed his Korean foe with strikes and bounce back from a stinging loss to Christian Lee last January.
As huge as his victory was, the 35-year old power puncher admitted that he almost gassed out in the match.
“To be honest, I nearly punched myself out,” said Kelly.
“I got tired throwing punches but I was surprised at him because he was still strong and was just absorbing my punches.”
Kelly might be back on the winning track, but he said that he’s far from satisfied.
Asked to rate his performance, Kelly said he gave himself a ‘thumbs down.’
“I admit, even though I won, there’s still questions to myself, the things that I have to develop in my next matches,” said Kelly.
“I have always wanted to get back to the winning track, that’s why my mentality heading here was to win whatever it takes.”
That win almost never came to fruition as Kelly nailed Sung with an inadvertent kick while they were jockeying for position in the first round.
Kelly was subsequently given a yellow card but Sung got everyone’s respect as he shrugged it off and continued the match – despite the option of possibly winning by disqualification.
“I was kind of nervous. I thought he was going to take the easy way out and get the disqualification victory,” said Kelly, with the thoughts of Kevin Belingon’s loss to Bibiano Fernandes still on his mind.
“But I was happy that he got up and he wanted to continue the match.”
