Folayang, Zhang make impression in mixed martial arts tiffs abroad

MANILA, Philippines - Two of the Universal Reality Combat Championship (URCC) stars have been invited and continued to dish out impressive campaigns abroad, underscoring URCC’s growing status in the world of mixed martial arts.

According to URCC founder and president Alvin Aguilar, Filipino Eduard Folayang and Chinese Zhang Tie Quan are consistently doing well in various leagues abroad with Folayang winning two of his last two fights in Martial Sports in Singapore.

Zhang, on the other hand, has recently signed up with US promotion WEC – a sister promotion of the UFC.

“This is a welcome development and this says a lot to our organization and to the players we discovered and helped nurture,” said Aguilar, who thanked Colt 45 for its support to all their projects.

On Saturday, URCC and Colt 45 will again join hands as it stages the URCC XVIII dubbed as “Relentless” at A. Venue Events Hall in Makati City.

The 10-bout event, also co-presented by Tribal Gear, will be highlighted by two title bouts involving Eric Kelly of Yaw Yan Ardigma who stakes his four-game winning streak against Nate Flores of Predator Combat/Konflikt in featherweight clash and BRAWL’s Jerry Legaspi who battles Froilan Sarenas of Submission Sport in the middleweight division.

Tickets for the event, backed by Chris Sports, Yoshinoya, Seair, SolarTV, Solar Sports, E-Games, 99.5 RT, NU 107, Rogue Magazine, Synermaxx and Stratus Cast, are available at TicketWorld (891-9999). The first fight starts at 8 p.m.

Aguilar said they will be doing live streaming of the fights on urccmma.com via pinoytuner.com. Some of the tournaments they organized in the past were also shown on The Filipino Channel (TFC) in North America, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Middle East.

Bantamweight Jessie Rafols of D’Elements gym takes on Jessie Salvador of Ju-Muay in one of the much-awaited showdown. Other matches are Roel Pacional vs Arnel Arancina, Noble Ampoc vs Regie Amarante, John Victor Vizconde vs Alvin Ramirez, Jose Campo III vs Pete Brooks and Frank Navarro vs Nicholas Mann.