ONE Championship: Shinya Aoki visits Eduard Folayang and Team Lakay in the Philippines
- Aoki takes an international flight and five-hour drive to reach three-time opponent’s training home in the mountains of Baguio City
- Japanese legend teaches grappling seminar at Team Lakay gym, but also makes time for leisure – and even goes horseback riding
Shinya Aoki is a man of his word.
After watching Eduard Folayang suffer a knockout loss to Edson Marques at ONE Championship Fight Night 5 last December in Manila, he promised to come visit the Filipino MMA trailblazer at his home gym, Team Lakay, in the mountain city of Baguio.
Less than two months later, and Aoki has completed the flight from Tokyo to Manila, and the five-hour drive from Manila to Baguio, where he is now spending time with Folayang and his teammates some 1,500 metres above the surrounding Pacific Ocean.
The two fighters, both former ONE lightweight champions, have spent most of their time together training. Aoki, one of the slickest submission specialists in MMA history, also taught a grappling seminar at the gym, which is also home to the former ONE strawweight champ Joshua Pacio, former bantamweight champ Kevin Belingon, and bantamweight contender Stephen Loman.
However, the pair have also made time for leisure, and even took a horseback ride through the surrounding wilderness.
Aoki and Folayang’s friendship is unconventional, to say the least. The two former champions have fought each other three times in the ONE Circle, and have never needed the judges.
They first met in Singapore in 2016 when Folayang, now 38, scored a shocking third-round TKO win to swipe the lightweight title from the Japanese grappler.
