SINGAPORE - Tiffany Teo, a former school choir member turned mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, made a winning One Championship debut appearance on Friday (Nov 11).

The Singaporean celebrated her 27th birthday by forcing former Egyptian boxing champion Walaa Abbas to tap out to a rear-naked submission choke in the second round at One's Defending Honour event at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Representing Juggernaut Fight Club, Teo extended her perfect professional MMA record to 4-0.

The bespectacled fighter, who works as a therapist for children with special needs, said: "This fight is going to be hard to forget, because it's my birthday too."

Her coach at Juggernaut, Arvind Lalwani, is proud of his protege's performance, saying: "She showed the world that she can fight."

While Teo had her hands lifted up in victory, fellow Singaporean Benedict Ang suffered his first defeat of his MMA career.

Entering the event with an unblemished 3-0 record, the 20-year-old Republic Polytechnic student lost to Ahmed Mujtaba of Pakistan via an unanimous decision.

The event kicked off with Singapore's pop sensation Nathan Hartono belting out a classy tune of Desperado.

But after the music faded, the attention was turned back to the ring and Niko Soe of Impact MMA gave the home crowd something to cheer about shortly after the opening bell when he defeated Malaysian Muhamad Haidar with an armbar submission in 77 seconds.

Headlining the night's nine-bout card will be the lightweight championship title bout between Japanese Shinya Aoki ahd Filipino Eduard Folayang.