MANILA – Filipino former mixed martial arts (MMA) champion Stephen Loman will not be seeing action at ONE on TNT 3.
ONE Championship announced on Thursday that Troy Worthen has replaced the Team Lakay standout as John Lineker’s opponent in the headliner for the fight card scheduled for an April 22 broadcast.
Loman, the longest-reigning champion of Brave Combat Federation before moving to ONE, reportedly contracted the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) prior to his departure to Singapore.
Loman’s teammate, Lito Adiwang, was also tested positive for Covid-19, prompting ONE to pull him out of his own match.
Adiwang was scheduled to face Jarred Brooks at ONE on TNT 2 scheduled to be aired next week.
ONE has yet to replace if Adiwang has been replaced for the fight, which was played right after the live ONE on TNT 1 broadcast.
Meanwhile, the entire Team Lakay delegation has been placed under observation following Loman and Adiwang’s positive test results.
This means that Eduard Folayang’s match at ONE on TNT 4 on April 29 is now in peril too, although supposed opponent Yoshihiro Akiyama said earlier in the week that he pulled himself out from the fight due to injuries.
Johnson KO’d, Alvarez DQ’d
At ONE on TNT 1, American MMA stars Demetrious Johnson and Eddie Alvarez suffered shock losses against separate foes.
Adriano Moraes achieved what 29 other fighters failed to do against Johnson as the former retained his ONE flyweight title in stunning fashion.
The Brazilian standout shocked the world after knocking out who fans tipped as the greatest MMA fighter of all time at the 2:20 mark of the second round.
Fighting mainly on an American television stage, Moraes showed glimpses early on after using his height and reach advantage to keep Johnson at bay before taking him down late into Round 1.
Johnson went more active to start Round 2, but Moraes hit him with a right uppercut followed by a knee strike to the head that staggered him too much, prompting Referee Olivier Coste to stop the fight.
Moraes, who has held the ONE flyweight belt since 2019, moved up to 19-3, scoring his 13th stoppage win and fourth by knockout.
Meanwhile, Johnson, who lost for the first time by knockout, dropped to 30-4-1.
On the other hand, a controversial ending marred the showdown between Alvarez and Iuri Lapicus.
Alvarez seemed to have gained full control of the fight after quickly taking Lapicus down and setting up the ground and pound.
However, the referee stopped the fight exactly a minute into it after what appeared to be Alvarez’s punches to the back of Lapicus’ head, which are illegal in ONE Championship rules.
After Lapicus said he could not continue, Alvarez was handed a disqualification loss.
Alvarez, however, thought that the officiating call was a bum one.
“It was a bad call on the referee’s side,” he said after the match.
Alvarez said he plans to “respectfully ask them to look back at the video and reverse their call.”
Lapicus, the world ranked number two lightweight by ONE, is now at 15-1, while Alvarez lost for the third time in his last four fights, falling to 30-8 overall with one no contest.
In the other nationally televised match, Tinnakorn Srisawat, more popularly known as Rodtang Jitmuangnon, defeated replacement fighter Danial Williams by unanimous decision.
A second-round knockdown impacted the outcome as Rodtang did just enough to edge Williams, who showed heart.
In the preliminary bouts, Oumar Kane knocked out Patrick Schmid in heavyweight action, Enriko Kehl edged Chingiz Allazov by split decision, and Raimond Magomdaliev outpointed Tyler McGuire.