“When Honorio hit my right eye, my vision in both eyes turned black for about 20 seconds. I couldn't see anything.”
Eric said, as I asked what happened in the 4th round when the fight ended.
Eric mentioned though, that he’s not taking anything away from Honorio and he’s not making any excuses. He says congratulations to the Champ and he knows that “Honorio did his best and deserves to be the ONEFC champion.”
He said that a lesson learned from this first loss of his career is that he will make sure that he is 100% ready before stepping into the cage again. His Boss at Muayfit gym, owner Paul Teo concurs, “Health always comes first before the fight. Eric is human, not machine. He shouldn't take any more fights until he's 100% fit again. We all love Eric Kelly and we don't want to see anything bad happen to him.” |
The champion said he wasn’t worried about dehydrating because Team Lakay’s entourage had a nurse who can rehydrate him through Intravenous (IV) fluids. “I didn’t want to waste all our efforts (in training) and I didn’t want to disappoint the fans so I really pushed myself to make weight.”
Finally, I pointed out to Honorio that in the OneFC 7 fight card, the other Featherweight matches also ended with remarkable results. I asked him questions which I believe will be asked from him sooner or later anyway,
“IF it were up to you, who do you think should be the first challenger to your belt?”
Of which he replied, as I expected, a confident and politically correct answer
“I will take on all comers, I’m always ready.”
and then I couldn't resist the urge and asked,
“Your only loss came from Bae Young Kwon, would you think he deserves to be the first challenger to your belt?”. As a true warrior that he is, he didn’t hesitate to say
“Yes, because I also want to have a rematch with him (Bae Young Kwon)”. So there you have it Fight boss, the Champ says he wants it too!
I congratulated The Champion, and thanked him for his time. We ended the conversation with Honorio saying “I just want to say thank you to everyone for the support you’ve given me. Thank you to my family, friends, Team Lakay, and to my great coach Mark Sangiao. I will have a rest for two-weeks, go for light training and get back to the gym soon!”
"Thank you for this interview manong."
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