By Kevin Estrada
Filipino fighter Mark Abelardo suffered a unanimous decision loss to Chinese stalwart Chen Rui in ONE: Bad Blood Friday at Singapore Indoor Stadium.
In a bantamweight battle between two aggressive fighters, “The Ghost” from Chengdu had to work hard to get back on the winning track against the Kiwi-born “Tyson” as they exchanged blows for the entire fifteen minutes.
The opening round was too close to call as both fighters traded strikes as Chen put his reach advantage to good use with a series of combinations to keep the Fairtex athlete at bay.
However, Abelardo then changed his tune in the second round as he caught the Ghost by surprise with his ground game after a flurry of strikes, taking him down twice in the said round to slow down.
“Tyson” continued that in the third round, where he took down Chen’s face into the canvas to make good use of his grappling abilities, but the latter held on with his superb defense and his timely punching to get the nod of all three judges.
The win enabled the Ghost (10-3, 4-3 ONE) to snap a two-fight skid, the last of which came at ONE: Battleground seven months ago, where he received the wrong end of Jeremy Pacatiw’s unanimous decision.
Abelardo fell to 20-9, and 3-4 on his ONE career.
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