Folayang spoils Parr’s farewell

FILIPINO mixed martial arts (MMA) icon Eduard Folayang had a successful Muay Thai debut after beating Aussie kickboxing legend John Wayne Parr by unanimous decision on Saturday night, March 26, 2022, in one of the featured fights of ONE Championship’s 10th year anniversary show, ONE X, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore.Folayang only fought in MMA in ONE Championship but decided to see action in a different sport, Muay Thai, after being chosen by Parr as his dancing partner for his final fight.Folayang is no stranger to striking with his wushu background and he showed his full arsenal against Parr. He dominated the opening stanza by landing a different array of strikes on the 45-year-old Parr.Folayang dropped Parr with an overhand right in the second round, but Parr was tough and survived the round.Parr finally landed his best strike of the night, a flying knee that rocked the 38-year-old Folayang but was unable to finish the latter off.Folayang, the former ONE lightweight champion, is now 1-0 in Muay Thai, while Parr, who fought his last Muay Thai fight, ended his illustrious career with 99 wins, 35 losses and a draw in Muay Thai and kickboxing.Meanwhile, Denice Zamboanga’s shot at ONE Women’s atomweight champion Angela Lee may just have to wait for a little bit longer after a unanimous- decision loss to Ham Seo Hee in their rematch.Their first fight ended in controversial fashion with Ham winning by split decision. This time though, Ham made sure that she would win convincingly and dominated Zamboanga with her grappling.Zamboanga dropped to 8-2, while Ham improved to 25-8.In the meantime, Jeremy Miado (11-4) scored another huge win after a second-round stoppage of Lito Adiwang (13-5) in an all-Filipino fight.The fight was action-packed with both fighters trading vicious blows.In the second round, Adiwang injured his right knee as he was backing up, prompting the referee to step in and stop the fight at the 2:56 mark.Meanwhile, No. 3 bantamweight Stephan Loman (16-2) inches closer to a world title shot after a unanimous-decision victory over Shooto bantamweight king Shoko Sato (32-15-2).