The shoe is on the other foot.
In their first match, Eduard Folayang was up against legendary Japanese fighter Shinya Aoki for a chance to become a world champion.
This time around, it is the “Landslide” who is the defending champion and the one on the side of giving his opponent a chance to reclaim the title that was once his before Folayang grabbed it from him.
This match was made known recently by ONE Championship as it announced that the two decorated titans of the ONE lightweight division will co-headline ONE Championship’s ONE: A New Era, the first showing in Japan, scheduled on March 31, 2019 at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.
Folayang’s manhandling of Aoki in their first match up on November 11, 2016 was probably the best fight of his career until the demolition of Amir Khan last November.
Aoki dominated the early parts of that fight but Folayang often frustrated him from executing his gameplan of using grappling techniques with brilliant escape maneuvers while mixing them with brilliant strike moves that Aoki could not defend either.
The end in the third round came when Folayang connected a flying knee to an onrushing Aoki who is going for a takedown early in the round. Both men clenched but he overpowers Aoki and pins him to the cage in an angle where his right hand had an open path to connect short punches to the face.
Folayang then rains shorts rights that all find their target. Referee Yuji Shimada finally ends the carnage after the 30th unanswered punch, sweetened by a right knee that connected sometime between the barrage, to the covering Aoki.
That officially confirmed he wrest the ONE Championship lightweight title.
That was the first loss of Aoki in nearly five years and possibly the greatest upset in the history of Asian MMA at that time.
Both fighters are on hot streaks since then.
After successfully defending the title five months against EV Ting, Folayang yielded the title to Martin Nguyen when he was knocked out right in front of his countrymen.
He, however, cameback beautifully after a brief hiatus and put dents on the records of two previously undefeated Russians to get another crack at the title.
He did not disappoint as he displayed vary of tricks in his offensive arsenal to reclaim the vacant title against Khan.
Aoki, on the other hand, suffered a second consecutive loss at the hands of Ben Askren, now with the UFC, but is back in the saddle, riding a three-bout win streak.
He submitted Rasul Yakhyaev and Ev Ting and stopped Shannon Wiratchai by TKO to have a chance to take back the title from his former tormentor at home.
Folayang is carrying a 21-6 career fight record going to this bout while Aoki has an even more impressive 42-8.
Also appearing in the event a co-headliners are Xiong Jing Nan, who is defending her ONE women’s strawweight world title against Angela Lee and ONE middleweight world champion Aung La N Sang against Ken Hasegawa.
New ONE Championship fighters Demetrious Johnson and Eddie Alvarez will also make their debuts next year. Alvarez is scheduled to face top lightweight contender Timofey Nastyukhin of Russia while Johnson, widely considered the best MMA fighter pound-for-pound, will be tested by Japan’s Yuya Wakamatsu.
By: ARMANDO M. BOLISLIS
Banner Photo: CORNERED! This was the only knee driven Eduard “Landslide” Folayang during this sequence in the main event of ONE: DEFENDING HONOR last November 11, 2016 at Singapore. Combined with 30 unanswered punches, this assault made Folayang the first to defeat Japanese MMA legend Shinya Aoki in nearly five years enroute to the ONE Lightweight World Championship. Photo courtesy of ONE Championship.