One Championship: Xiong ‘The Panda’ Jingnan huffs and puffs but fails to bring the house down in Macau title defence
Fight with Argentina’s Laura Balin goes to the wire before judges hand it to the Chinese champion while Angela Lee looms on the horizon

Xiong (15-1) began in a blur of fury attempting to blow Balin (10-3) out of the ring swiftly. That didn’t work. Then she took the Argentine to the mat hoping to overpower her with a superior ground game. That didn’t work. At other times there was a cursory attempt at laying on a submissive manoeuvre, a road notably less travelled by the concussive striker. All failed and in the end, she simply stayed busy enough to secure a deserved if slightly unconvincing first defence of her strawweight crown.
The judges seeming to concur with the adage that it is the effort that counts.
Eventually, it was her incredible conditioning – still up on the balls of her feet after 24 minutes – that saw her past the stubborn Argentine, but the Chinese knew she had been far from her best.

That endeavour, at least, was in evidence.