USA’s undefeated welterweight champion, Ben Askren made a successful ONE Fighting Championship (ONE FC) debut last night, submitting his opponent in the first round.
The fight saw the battle between a wrestler and a combat sambo champion - both displaying their grappling skills in a showdown that brought fight fans to the edge of their seats.
Askren’s opponent, Bakhtiyar Abbasov from Azerbaijan started the bout with an impressive takedown but Askren quickly reversed the position, pinning Abbasov down to the ground.
The former Bellator champion soon dominated his opponent and finished off the fight with arm-triangle submission.
The win added another point on Askren’s professional mixed martial arts (MMA) record, making it 13 wins and no loss.
Meanwhile, in the co-main event bout, Netherland’s Vincent Latoel defeated Hong Kong’s rising MMA star, Eddie Ng hence moving his lightweight rankings up.
Latoel caught Ng moving forward and landed Ng some punches which caused him to fall.
But as Ng wanted to get back up, the referee Yuji Shimada jumped in to stop him from continuing the fight, declaring that Latoel had won by a knockout.
Shimada’s action met with a loud boo from the crowd. However, Ng displayed great sportsmanship when he respected Shimada’s decision to end the fight.
“I had a really good training camp. But the referee here at the end of day, is to look out for the safety of the fighters.
“So if the referee thinks it was the right time stop I am not going to argue,” said Ng after the fight.
For the featherweight bout, Mongolia’s Narantungalag Jadambaa defeated Honorio Banario from the Philippines via judges decision where all three judges voted for Jadambaa’s win.
Both Banario and Jadambaa put on an impressive striking exhibition that had the crowd cheering their every move.
The results of the other fights for ONE FC: Honor & Glory are as follows:
Welterweight - Ben Askren defeated Bakhtiyar Abbasov by submission (arm-triangle choke) at 4:21 minutes of the first round
Lightweight - Latoel defeated Eddie Ng by knockout at 3:16 minutes of the first round
Featherweight - Narantungalag Jadambaa defeated Honorio Banario via judges’ decision at 5.00 minutes of the third round.
Lightweight - Caros Fodor defeated Willy Ni by submission (kimura) at 3:29 minutes of the first round
Featherweight - Major Overall defeated Bruno Pucci by knockout at 2:52 minutes of the first round
Heavyweight - Chi Lewis Parry and Alain Ngalani declared no contest
Bantamweight - Radeem Rahman defeated Raymond Tan by TKO (strikes) at 2:14 minutes of the second round
Catchweight - Nik Harris defeated Brad Robinson by split decision at 5:00 minutes of the third round
Bantamweight - Casey Suire defeated Stephen Langdown by submission (rear naked choke) at 3:41 minutes of the first round
ONE FC’s Honor & Glory was held at Singapore Indoor Stadium on Friday in front of 14,000 MMA fight fans.
Haider Yutim
Sat May 31 2014
'Funky' Ben Askren talks to the Press after winning his fight. --Astro AWANI
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