‘Korean Zombie’ Jung Chan-sung beats Frankie Edgar at UFC Busan

Jung Chan-sung beat Frankie Edgar of the U.S. on technical knockout (TKO) at three minutes and 38th second in the first round of the main event at the UFC Fighter Night Busan (UFC Busan), which took place at Sajik Arena in Busan on Saturday. By defeating the former lightweight class champion dubbed a “living legend,” Jung has thus found justification to challenge the championship for the first time among the Korean fighters.

Jung was originally scheduled to fight Brian Ortega of the U.S. As Ortega suffered an injury, Jung accepted the fight, believing that he is “destined to fight” only after testing himself through a fight against a wrestler-turned UFC fighter who is similar to Edgar in style.

Most watchers predicted that the match will not determine the winner and the loser throughout the five rounds, and eventually terminate through an umpire’s decision. This is because Edgar, a veteran fighter who has had 17 wins in the UFC alone, uses a fighting style in which he constantly launches attack to exhaust his opponent, while Jung planned to perform highly care-taken play to counter the rival.

Unlike watchers’ prediction, Jung launched right-hand uppercuts and one-two punches to knock down Edgar at 30th second, elevating his chance to knockout the American fighter. Edgar displayed strong endurance nevertheless. After the American fighter fell down, he suffered attack by Jung who pounded him mercilessly for two minutes while sitting on him, but he endured the attack before managing to rise again.

That was the breaking point for him however. Edgar allowed Jung to launch another series of the same attack (right-hand uppercut and one-two punches) against him, and as a result he failed to rise until the umpire stopped Jung from attacking. The match, which was scheduled to entail a total or 25 minutes or five five-minute rounds, ended prematurely at 3 minutes and 18 seconds. Having presented a thrilling match, Jung earned 50,000 U.S. dollars in “Performance of the Night” bonus. Edgar, who planned to lower his class to bantamweight class after the match, unpleasantly ended his last featherweight class match through the second TKO in his entire career.


Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com