Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Eduard Folayang to fight Japanese ring veteran for ONE FC 15: Rise of Heroes

The man they call the "Landslide" is set to enter the cage yet again this coming May. Eduard Folayang, the poster boy of Philippine mixed martial arts will be on the undercard of ONE Fighting Championship: Rise of Heroes, a fight card scheduled to unfold at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Manila on May 2, 2014. It will be Folayang's sixth appearance for the burgeoning Singapore-based MMA promotional company. His current record under the ONE FC banner stands at three wins and two losses.

To share the cage with Folayang come May 2 is Kotetsu Boku, an older and much more experienced fighter from Japan. Boku sports a 21-9-2 fight record compared to Folayang's 13-4. Boku is 36 and Folayang is 29 so there's an age difference of seven years. However, age doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent for the grizzled Japanese fighter as evidenced by his quick knockout win over Arnaud Lepont just a few weeks ago at ONE FC 14: War of Nations.


The two fighters share a common opponent from their previous fights and this is Vuyisile Colossa of South Africa. Folayang defeated Colossa via unanimous decision way back in 2010. Boku lost to him by unanimous decision last year. This is not at all a reliable way to gauge how Folayang and Boku stack up against each other but in a way it gives the Team Lakay fighter a bit of an advantage.

Rise of Heroes will be headlined by a match between Bibiano Fernandez and Masakatsu Ueda. It will be the former's first defense of the ONE FC bantamweight title which he won last year when he defeated Soo Chul Kim.

Also fighting in the undercard is Jujeath Nagaowa, a female Cordilleran boxer who will be making her MMA debut against Jeet Toshi (2-1) of India. There's also the chance that Rey Docyogen (also from Team Lakay) will be joining the card.