Eduard “Landslide” Folayang and Danny “The King” Kinagd lead the local crew that is seeing action in a loaded Manila fight card at ONE: Dawn of Heroes on August 2 at the Mall of Asia Arena where new ONE recruit Demetrious Johnson also has an appearance.
Folayang is set to square against Eddie Alvarez in a lightweight MMA bout. Both Folayang and Alvarez are coming off disappointing losses in their last bouts, both held during ONE: New Era last March, and should be raring for a victory.
Folayang yielded his lightweight title to Shinya Aoki in the rematch bout where he was stopped in the first round by an arm triangle choke that literally put him to sleep. Earlier that night, Alvarez was kayoed by strikes also in the first round from Timofey Nastyukhin during the ONE Lightweight Grand-Prix Quarterfinal round.
Kingad takes former ONE Flyweight World Champion Kairat “The Kazakh” Akhmetov in a ONE Flyweight World Grand Prix semifinal bout.
Kingad reached the semis by defeating Senzo Ikeda via unanimous decision.
Johnson will take on Tatsumitsu Wada in the other ONE Flyweight World Grand Prix semifinal bout. Johnson made a rousing debut in ONE by submitting Yuya Wakamatsu in the second round during the quarterfinals.
The winner of this bout will face the winner of the Kingad- Akhmetov bout in the finals.
Also seeing action in the event are Honorio “The Rock” Banario and Fil-Aussie Reece Mclaren.
Banario will see action in a ONE Lightweight World Grand Prix semifinal contest against Russian knockout artist Timofey Nastyukhin, who earned his spot by upsetting Alvarez in the quarterfinal round of the tournament.
The former ONE Featherweight World Champion is a lucky loser as he actually lost to Lowen Tynanes in the quarterfinals but will step in as contender instead because the former is injured.
McLaren, whose mother was Australian and father was from the Philippines, will take on Yuya Wakamatsu in a flyweight MMA bout.
The other bouts taking place so far are:
- Jonathan Haggerty vs. Rodtang Jitmuangnon (ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Championship)
- Leandro Issa vs. Daichi Takenaka (mixed martial arts — bantamweight)
- Ayaka Miura vs. Samara Santos (mixed martial arts — women’s strawweight)
- Neunglanlek Jitmuangnon vs. Chris Shaw (ONE Super Series Muay Thai — bantamweight)
By Armando M. Bolislis
