Nguyen says it hurt to see Folayang knocked out

MANILA - Two-division champion Martin Nguyen admitted that seeing Eduard Folayang down on the mat unconscious was a tough a pill to swallow. Nguyen, who also holds the ONE world featherweight title, defeated the Team Lakay veteran by knockout Friday night to snatch the ONE lightweight title.

In a rare display of great respect and sportsmanship, Nguyen went down on his knees to check and hold an out cold Folayang the very second the fight was stopped. It was an unfortunate sight for Nguyen, specially since the two fighters had developed a warm friendship outside the cage.

“Honestly, it really hurt. I never ever want to see someone I like or someone I know go through that,” Nguyen confessed. “Unfortunately as I said before the fight took off and we put our friendship aside as martial artist versus martial artist. I couldn't help but have that hurt feeling for him when he got knocked out.”

It took one perfectly timed punch for Nguyen to get the job done. After Folayang missed a spinning back kick in round two, the now featherweight and lightweight champion countered with a monstrous right hand that sent Folayang crashing to the canvas.

Landing the shot was not an accident according to Nguyen, as it is a game plan they’ve gone through over and over in training.

“Throughout this whole six weeks that the amount of spinning backfists and spinning back kicks I've caught to my head, you can count to a million,” said Nguyen. “It was all up to me to adjust, I've timed it perfect with that right hand that was meant to be a takedown but I threw the right hand out of instinct and it landed flash.” — DVM, GMA News