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ONE Championship put on its second fight card of the year Friday, and crowned a new interim flyweight champion.
Geje Eustaquio and Kairat Akhmetov headlined the show in a rematch of their close bout in September, and fought for 25 minutes. It was a close contest, and Eustaquio avenged his split-decision defeat and walked away with a unanimous decision victory this time.
Eustaquio is now expected to face ONE undisputed flyweight champion Adriano Moraes, who was cage side in Manila to watch the contest.
The main event ended via decision, but the rest of the fight card featured some impressive finishes.
Joshua Pacio took on Ming Qiang Lan in the co-main event, and controlled the match on the ground to score a first-round submission. Pacio came close to getting the finish with an arm-triangle choke, but got the tap with a rear-naked choke seconds after.
That was not the only first-round finish of the night. Hayato Suzuki also only needed four minutes to end his fight, defeating Brazilian flyweight Yago Bryan with a rear-naked choke.
Brazil suffered another defeat when Bruno Pucci entered the cage to fight Emilio Urrutia in a featherweight bout. Pucci showed a lot of heart, but eventually went down and was saved by the referee, losing via first-round TKO.
A knockout of the year candidate happened in a featherweight fight between Edward Kelly and previously unbeaten Meas Meu, when Kelly scored a 21-second victory with a brutal knee to the head.
In the women’s strawweight division, Jomary Torres improved to 4-0 with a knockout over April Osenio, countering an armbar attempt with a slam that put her opponent out cold.
Following the losses of his countrymen Pucci and Bryan, Rafael Nunes scored one win for Brazil as he submitted Eric Kelly in the second round, bouncing back to the winning column in his first fight since 2014. Nunes improved to 11-1 in MMA.
In another first-round submission finish in Manila, Rajinder Singh Meena choked out Ze Hao Zhang in under a minute. Meena rocked Zhang with a six-punch combination, locking in a guillotine choke and putting him to sleep.
This article first appeared at MMA Fighting – All Posts
