Pieter Buist (©ONE Championship)

Eduard “Landslide” Folayang, 35, of the Philippines lost to Antonio “The Spartan” Caruso, 29, of Australia via unanimous decision at “ONE: Inside the Matrix” at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore on October 30, 2020. Recently, Pieter “The Archangel” Buist, 32, of Breda, Netherlands shared why he thought the Filipino mixed martial arts veteran lost to his Australian opponent, who is of Greek and Italian descent.

“No matter how strong physically you are for all the fighters, it’s the same,” Buist shared. “It’s mental warfare always. It begins with mental warfare and ends with mental warfare. The physical part is punching, beating, choking, you know.”

“I think mentally, he wasn’t there,” Buist said of Folayang. “But Caruso is a good fighter. I fought him also.”

Both Caruso and Folayang were coming out of a loss to Buist. The Ghanaian-Dutch MMA fighter defeated Caruso via unanimous decision at “ONE: Dawn of Valor” at the Istora Senayan in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 25, 2019 and Folayang via split decision at “ONE: Fire and Fury” at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

“He’s a true warrior,” Buist said of Caruso. “He comes to fight. For him, it was the same thing. I think Caruso was mentally better prepared than Eduard.”

Buist is currently ranked third among the ONE Championship lightweight contenders. Neither Caruso nor Folayang are in the Top 5.

On November 6, 2020, Buist will fight Timofey Nastyukhin, 30, of Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia at “ONE: Inside the Matrix II” at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. The Russian contender is number 4 in the ONE Championship lightweight ranking.

“ONE: Inside the Matrix II” will feature five MMA matches. The lightweight contest between Buist and Timofey is the co-main event of the evening.

In the main event of the evening, James Nakashima, 30, of Glendale, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA will challenge ONE Welterweight World Champion Kiamrian “Brazen” Abbasov, 26, of Kyrgyzstan. The American challenger is an undefeated fighter with 12 wins and 0 loss.