Belingon finishes foe in 62 secs, Kelly stumbles
IN JUST over a minute, Team Lakay’s Kevin Belingon simply shut the lights out of his Australian foe in the main card of One Championship’s Quest for Greatness at the Stadium Negara in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Belingon was all business when he squared off against former world bantamweight title contender Reece Mclaren as the Filipino knockout artist completed yet another scintillating finish.
The Ifugao native finished the job in just 62 seconds, dropping his Australian opponent with a hard right straight before punctuating with follow-up strikes on the ground to compel referee Olivier Coste to step in and halt the contest.
The revered Team Lakay veteran recorded
his seventh knockout 0and improved his record to 16 – 5 overall while McLaren dropped to 9-5.
With the impressive win, Belingon made a strong statement of challenging world bantamweight champion Bibiano Fernandes for another rematch.
Meanwhile fellow Team Lakay fighter Edward Kelly’s three fight win streak came to a halt as Emilio Urrutia of the United States made a triumphant promotional debut in ONE Championship in their three-round featherweight encounter.
Urrutia relied on his solid ground game to pacify his Filipino opponent’s firepower in the stand-up trade, wearing down Kelly and steering him to a decisive victory by way of unanimous decision.
In the main event, Martin Nguyen of Australia completed his journey in the featherweight ranks by upsetting previously-unbeaten Russian champion Marat Gafurov via knockout within two rounds to clinch the highly-coveted ONE featherweight world championship.
Gafurov dominated the first round with his magnificent grappling arsenal, but Nguyen found his groove in the second frame as he tore apart his Russian foe with his striking.
Recognizing an opening, Nguyen countered Gafurov’s jab with an overhand right that knocked out the now former champion at the center of the ONE Championship cage. Nguyen’s remarkable conquest of Gafurov earned him the “GoDaddy Knockout of the Night” award.
In the co-main, former world title challenger Ev Ting of Malaysia placed his name back in the winner’s column by overwhelming Japanese veteran and former ONE welterweight world champion Nobutatsu Suzuki to win by devastating technical knockout.
From the opening bell, Ting paced himself well, keeping Suzuki at range with his accurate striking before executing the end sequence. After staggering Suzuki with a combination, Ting swarmed his opponent to score the referee stoppage.
Filipino fighter Robin Catalan meanwhile fell to former ONE strawweight world champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke of Thailand in the second-round via technical knockout.
His brother Rene, however came out victorious defeating Bu Huo as all three judges saw the bout in favor of Catalan to win by unanimous decision.