Featuring three Muay Thai matches, two kickboxing contests and nine MMA bouts, "ONE: Legendary Quest" took place at the Baoshan Arena in Shanghai, China on June 15, 2019. In the fourth bout of the evening, Niu fought Eric "The Natural"Kelly, 37, of Baguio City, Philippines in an MMA match in the featherweight division with Kemp Cheng as the referee.
After three five-minute rounds, the featherweight contest was left in the hands of the judges. In the end, Cheng raised the hand of Niu, who was declared the winner via unanimous decision.
Winning at "ONE: Legendary Quest" improved the professional MMA record of Niu to 6 wins and 1 loss. On the other hand, Kelly now has 12 wins and 8 losses.
Niu was one of the three athletes who represented South Korea at "ONE: Legendary Quest" while Kelly was one of the three representatives of the Philippines. Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, the Netherlands, Scotland, South Korea, Thailand and the United Kingdom were also represented.
On June 12, 2019, Niu and Kelly had their official face-off during the press conference at Yunspace in Shanghai. The event was graced by ONE Championship Greater China chairman Hua Fung Teh and reigning ONE Women's Strawweight World Champion "The Panda" Xiong Jing Nan, 31, of China.
Born on May 28, 1996 in China, Niu started his training in sanda when he was a young boy in Henan. He moved to Shanghai in 2015 in search of better training and made his professional MMA debut in 2016.
When Niu made his ONE Championship debut on January 19, 2019, he knocked out "The Terminator" Sunoto, 34, of Jakarta, Indonesia. "ONE: Legendary Quest" marked the Henan native's second bout in the promotion.
Watch all the "ONE: Legendary Quest" bouts here:
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