FILIPINO fighter Rene Catalan’s loss in his debut fight during the recent One Fighting Championship: Total Domination mixed martial arts competition at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, was reversed and declared a no-contest.
The decision has saved the Asian Games Wushu gold medalist Catalan from the bitter taste of his first defeat in his debut fight vs. Kun Khmer Champion Khim Dima in the flyweight division.
Officials of ONE FC was quoted in earlier reports as saying “Khim Dima landed several significant illegal strikes to the back of the neck of his opponent Rene Catalan.”
The controversial decision of the One Fighting Championship negated referee Kenichi Serizawa’s decision to award a technical knockout win to Dima, as officials say that they arrived at the decision after reviewing the fight.
This as ONE FC 12: Warrior Spirit is being geared up to explode on Nov. 15 at the Putra Indoor Stadium in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with four new additions and a bonus tournament final match.
Set to see action in the fightfest are Adam Kayoom (4-1) and Nobutatsu Suzuki (10-1-2), for the inaugural welterweight title; Melvin Yeoh (7-1) and A.J. Lias Mansor (1-3), who will try to subdue each other in the final of the Malaysian national featherweight tournament.
The Muay Thai specialist Yeoh stormed into final by eking out a submission win vs. Raymond Tiew for his fifth-straight MMA stoppage win.
The other matches to be featured in the slugfest are the flyweight bout between Malaysian fighters Gianni Subba (2-0) and Chen Yun Ting (1-0), Nik Harris (4-2) vs. Zuli Silawanto (6-6), and Steven Durr (1-1) vs. Samir Mrabet (2-0). /Correspondent JADE S. VIOLETA