Folayang won’t hang up the gloves yet

Filipino MMA icon Eduard “Landslide” Folayang had a rough night in his return as he suffered from another loss, this time against Australian fighter Antonio “The Spartan” Caruso at ONE Championship: Inside the Matrix. 

The former ONE lightweight champion found himself in a deep slump after losing 4 of his last 5 outings – a skid that started with back-to-back submission losses against veterans Shinya Aoki and Eddie Alvarez. 

Despite his recent lackluster performances, Folayang is not ready to hang up his gloves just yet.

“I’m not contemplating retirement yet,” Folayang said. “We need to go through my mistakes again. It’s one of those seasons – it’s winter time for me. I need to assess myself and go back to the circle again.”

Folayang admitted the pandemic affected him and emphasized that he needs to go back to the drawing board to figure out the problems in his performance.

“The problem’s within me,” he said. “I really need to assess my performance. My mind is clear coming to this fight, but I think my conditioning is not good. I really need to check the mistakes that I need to fix, again.”

The 35-year-old Filipino out of Team Lakay got outclassed on the ground and was dropped by Caruso’s right hand in the second round, but Folayang tried to fight back and scored with his leg kicks in the last round. 

Folayang believes he did well in the fight, but gave all the credit to his Australian challenger, who displayed all the respect to the Filipino veteran after the fight.

“I think I did well in all rounds, but it was my opponent’s night, let’s give him credit,” Folayang said.

Folayang, who will turn 36 next month, promised he will return to the ONE Championship cage.

“It’s not my night but for sure, I’ll be back, bigger and stronger,” he said. – Rappler.com