Edward Kelly Wins Crazy Battle With Sung Jong Lee Via TKO
Edward “The Ferocious” Kelly made a triumphant return to ONE Championship in front of his home crowd as he stopped Sung Jong Lee to finish a breathless bout at ONE: ROOTS OF HONOR.
The featherweight athletes locked horns on Friday, 12 April in front of a raucous crowd at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, Philippines, and the fans were on their feet through one and a half rounds of relentless action.
The match got off to a fast and furious start as Lee shot immediately for a takedown so he could begin his submission offensive. Almost as soon as the NAGA No-Gi Grappling Champion took Kelly to the ground, he started to threaten with a rear-naked choke.
However, “The Ferocious” was prepared for Lee’s grappling attack, and he powered out of his predicament and swept his rival to wind up on top as the partisan Filipino crowd erupted.
He was not out of the woods for long, as the South Korean dived for a leg to threaten with a kneebar. Kelly stayed in the contest by deciding attack was the best form of defense, and he teed off with a plethora of punches to the head.
The Team Lakay representative recognized the danger Lee posed with his grappling, and wisely worked to get the action back up to the stand-up realm, but Lee was persistent with his chain-wrestling to keep both men horizontal.
The action continued in the same vein for the majority of the round as Lee maintained his submission attack while Kelly pounded away relentlessly until the bell.
In the second round, the two warriors picked up from where they left off. This time, as the 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Korea product pursued the heel hook, Kelly turned up his offensive output and unloaded a torrent of strikes.
After a near-minute of absorbing damage, Lee faded and started to offer no intelligent defense or retaliation, which caused the referee to call a halt to the action at 2:51 of round two.
After his hand was raised, the 35-year-old from Baguio City hailed the Filipino fans for their encouragement and took Mitch Chilson through his victory.
“I knew that he was a leg lock specialist, but I was confident I could escape. The legs of Filipinos are strong enough to survive that,” he said.
With the victory, Kelly improved his record to 12-6 and maintained his 100-percent finishing rate in the world’s largest martial arts organization.
