Eduard Folayang is ready to write another chapter to a decorated mixed martial arts career when he squares off with American Eddie Alvarez in ONE: Dawn of the Heroes on Friday at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Fighting in the undercard, Folayang is out to rebound from his disappointing submission loss to Shinya Aoki last March in Japan.
This time, Folayang is fully focused and motivated on on his World Grand Prix semifinal faceoff with Alvarez.
“I lost my (lightweight championship) belt but that chapter is already closed,” said Folayang, 34, who owns a record of 21 wins and seven losses.
Folayang has high regard for Alvarez, who has won a string of championship belts with a fight record of 29 wins and seven losses.
“He’s (Alvarez) one of the athletes that I’ve been watching before and it is an honor to be facing him because I’ll be able to test my skills,” said Folayang.
Alvarez, on his part, also has high respect for the long-time MMA icon, saying he had done a lot of great things for the Philippines.
“I rarely come as a nemesis to a country, so it’s unusual to be the bad guy,” said a joking Alvarez.
“In the movies, heroes always prevail, the nemesis loses and goes home. Unfortunately, that’s not the story I’m here to write (on Friday),” said Alvarez, who is coming off a loss to Timofey Nastyukhin also last March in Japan.
The Folayang-Alvarez duel will just be among the undercards of the night as it features the featherweight world championship main event between Australia’s Martin Nguyen and Japan’s Koyomi Matsushima, as well as the flyweight muay thai world championship bout between United Kingdowm’s Jonathan Haggerty and Thailand’ Rodtang Jitmuangnon.
Among the Filipino fighters also seeing action are Danny Kingad against Australia’s Reece McLaren for the world grand prix semi-final,Geje Eustaquio over Japan’s Yuya Wakamatsu for the World Grand Prix reserve bout prelim, Honorio Banario versus Korea’s Dae Sung Park in the prelim, and Edward Kelly over China’s Xie Bin also in the prelim. (KRISTEL SATUMBAGA)
