Cambodian MMA star Chan Rothana showed his battling qualities in an admirable performance against Chinese wrestler Haobin Haobin Ma, eventually losing his bantamweight fight on points on Saturday at ONE: Heroes of the World in Macau’s Cotai Arena.

Rothana successfully escaped his opponent’s grappling early in the first round before coming back into the fight with punches and kicks.

In the second round, Rothana had a great chance to finish the fight with a kick. Ma tried to catch Rothana’s leg and pull the Cambodian to the ground, but Rothana reacted with a powerful kick to the neck and chest that would likely have ended the match had it caught Ma cleanly on the jaw.

Rothana was late to add further kicks and the Chinese fighter was given enough time to defend and escape a knockout.

Ma replied in the third and final round with a great chance to finish Rothana after wrestling the former kun Khmer boxer to the ground, but his barrages of punches to the back of the Cambodian fighter were not enough to stop him.

Finally, after the three close rounds, the Chinese fighter was awarded the fight with a unanimous decision from the judges to improve his record to three wins and one loss, while Rothana drops to four wins and two defeats.

In the main event of the evening, Adriano “Mikinho” Moraes of Brazil defeated Kyrgyzstan’s Tilek Batyrov by submission to capture the interim ONE flyweight championship belt.

Batyrov had a slight advantage in the striking battle for the majority of the bout, but on the ground it was all Moraes as the Brazilian spun a web of crafty grappling to dominate Batyrov.

In the second round, Moraes was finally able to lock in a deep rear naked choke to force the tap.