Tiffany Teo came up short against Xiong Jing Nan at ONE Championship’s Inside the Matrix on Friday. For the second time.
The pair first met in 2018, with the promotion’s vacant strawweight belt on the line. Two years, and two wins for Teo later, their rematch was one of four title fights at the Inside the Matrix card in Singapore.
This time, Teo went the distance. Still, she wound up on the wrong end of a unanimous decision.
There were no real surprises from Xiong in the fight, Teo (9-2) said during a virtual media session afterward. “That’s what she does, that’s how she fights. I wasn’t really that taken aback by any of the things that she was doing,” said Teo.
If there were any changes from the pair’s first fight, it was perhaps “more kicks from her this time around, compared to the first time I went against her. But I still feel the striking exchanges were pretty much what I expected.”
Teo had the most success in the fifth and final round, when she was able to take the champ down. “I was thinking in my mind, I have to end this round really strong, I have to end this fight if I want to win this fight,” Teo recalled.
Despite the loss, however, the Singapore native stated that “I’m very proud of my performance this time around, and I know that I belong at this championship level. I don’t know what’s next for me, but we’ll see.”
Noting that the strawweight division in ONE is rather small, Teo figures that “the next two top contenders will be Michelle [Nicolini] I guess, and Ayaka [Miura].” So who she fights next “really depends on what happens next, who contends for the title.”
Watch the full ONE Championship: Inside the Matrix post-fight media session with Tiffany Teo above.
