Eddie Alvarez could end up winning ONE Championship’s lightweight grand prix after all…

Yes, the promotion has announced that an August 2nd bout between Alvarez (29-7) and Eduard Folayang (21-7) will serve as a semifinal in the tourney, since Timofey Nastyukhin has been forced out of the GP due to injury.

Nastyukhin spoiled the promotional debut of Alvarez in March, by stopping the former ONE and Bellator champ in the first round. That fight was a quarterfinal bout for ONE’s ongoing lightweight GP.

Nastyukhin was scheduled to fight Honorio Banario in the semis. Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev has already advance to the finals.

If you don’t follow ONE, then you might not know that Folayang is a former lightweight champ for the organization, and he holds wins over Shinya Aoki as well as Nastyukhin.

Here is the line-up for “Dawn of Heroes”, which will take place in Manila.

Jonathan Haggerty vs. Rodtang Jitmuangnon (ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Championship)
Eduard Folayang vs. Eddie Alvarez (ONE Lightweight World Grand Prix Semifinal)
Demetrious Johnson vs. Tatsumitsu Wada (ONE Flyweight World Grand Prix semifinal)
Danny Kingad vs. Kairat Akhmetov (ONE Flyweight World Grand Prix semifinal)
Reece McLaren vs. Yuya Wakamatsu (mixed martial arts — flyweight)
Leandro Issa vs. Daichi Takenaka (mixed martial arts — bantamweight)
Ayaka Miura vs. Samara Santos (mixed martial arts — women’s strawweight)
Neunglanlek Jitmuangnon vs. Chris Shaw (ONE Super Series Muay Thai — bantamweight)

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