By Kevin Estrada
Fairtex’s Mark Abelardo got back on the winning track after putting Emilio Urrutia to sleep in the curtain- raiser of ONE: Fists Of Fury II at the Singapore Indoor Stadium Friday evening.
The New Zealand-based Pinoy fighter showed why he was nicknamed “Tyson”, maximizing his striking prowess in taking out the Honey Badger well past the midway point of the second round.
In the process, it was his fifth win in the promotion that snapped his losing skid to two bouts, all of which came last year as he won his 20th fight in his MMA career.
With a three-inch height disadvantage, Abelardo knew that getting close and aggressive is the key to negate the reach of the American who came in also with a three-fight slide of his own.
After trying to cut it first with the leg kicks, he finally found the target in the waning moments of the first round, with a right cross to the chin set off a barrage of punches and elbows that spelled trouble to Urrutia before barely surviving the bell thanks in-part to the circle wall.
The aggressiveness of Abelardo continued in the following round, with him clearly pumped up and despite repeated takedown attempts by the Miami native to turn the fight around.
His confidence on its peak, the Filipino then finished it off in a flash at the 3:20 mark of the second round, countering Urrutia’s left hook with a right tomahawk elbow to the chin that sent his opponent to the canvas for good.
“I could see him reaching with his hooks,” an overjoyed Abelardo said to Mitch Chilson in a post-bout interview. “He was kind of overextending, so I waited for him to throw a couple of more and I just timed it and it landed.”
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