ONE Fighting Championship held a press conference yesterday at the Discovery Hotel in Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines for its ONE FC: Pride of a Nation, presenting internationally renowned fighters Shinya Aoki, Andrei Arlovski, Bibiano Fernandes, Gustavo Falciroli, Eduard “The Landslide” Folayang and Eric “The Natural” Kelly.
ONE FC CEO and owner Victor Cui—who shared to the media that his parents are Filipinos from the Southern province of Cebu—proclaimed that for the Singapore-based MMA company’s Philippine debut,
We have put together the greatest card in ONE FC history for our Manila event. When you put Shinya Aoki and Bibiano Fernandes on the same card, one can expect nothing less than an epic night of world-class MMA action like Manila has never seen before…We are beyond excited to hold this incredible card in such a passionate and pride driven city.
For the Filipino fight fans, the main event of “Asia’s largest MMA organization” pits DREAM Bantamweight Champion Bibiano Fernandes against CFC Australia Champion Gustavo Falciroli, with the venue being the historic SMART Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. (The Araneta Coliseum also hosted the legendary boxing event “Thrilla in Manila” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975, among other important sporting and non-sporting events in the nation’s history.)
In the other matches, former UFC heavyweight champion Arlovski will face rising star Soa Palelei of Australia. Another past UFC champion, Jens Pulver, will face undefeated Filipino fighter Eric Kelly.
Aoki and popular hometown fighter Folayang so far have unnamed opponents, which Cui said will be announced soon.
Clearly still the most world-famous fighters in the card, Aoki, Pulver and Arlovski aim to impress the Filipino fans with emphatic wins in their debut in Manny Pacquiao’s home country.
DREAM Lightweight Champion Aoki looks to rebound from his TKO loss in his last fight, against Eddie Alvarez in Bellator 66 last April. (Negotiations are still ongoing for a possible fight between Aoki and Kazushi Sakuraba, according to the Tobikan Judan’s interpreter.)
Little Evil Pulver wants to make it a two-fight winning streak, after winning his last match, at flyweight, last April.
Arlovski is currently running high on two consecutive knockout wins versus Ray Lopez and Travis Fulton, respectively, both in ProElite fights.
The Pit Bull commits not to repeat his folly versus legend Fedor Emelianenko, who knocked him out three years ago during their Affliction main event after he attempted an ill-timed flying knee. He vows,
I’m not going to jump again like I did to Fedor. I lost a lot of money. I learned from those fights.
The former UFC heavyweight titlist was the wackiest in the press conference, even imitating Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas character in the action movie “300” (when told by a reporter that they look alike) by extending his arms laterally and shouting, “This is Sparta!“
And this is ONE FC.
Note: The ONE FC organizers advise MMA fans who plan to watch One FC: Pride of a Nation live to purchase tickets at TicketNet Philippines as early as possible to avoid the precedent in Indonesia, when there were fans who were not able to get inside the jam-packed fight venue of its Battle of Heroes event, after the tickets were sold out.
This upcoming event will be shown via live stream at www.onefc.com, at delayed telecast on ESPN Star Sports and local Philippine TV’s Channel 13 AKTV, which will run a series of build-up episodes beginning August 19.
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