SINGAPORE — Filipino fighter Kevin Belingon became the undisputed bantamweight champion after a split decision victory over Brazilian Bibiano Fernandes in ONE Championship: Heart of the Lion on Friday night at Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The 31-year old Belingon avenged a stunning one-round loss via submission two years ago as he ended Fernandes’ winning run that spanned eight years and 14 fights.
“Bibiano is a very tough opponent, I really had a hard time to beat him tonight and I respect him very much, it’s an honor to fight such a great fighter,” he said.
“The game plan was to knock him out but Bibi is a very tough fighter I saw something in his previous fight that he’s not very good to absorb a punch or a kick so I kept on throwing him kicks,” added Belingon, who got a huge lift from Filipinos in the crowd.
Christian Lee defeated Kazuki Tokudome via a technical knockout in a catchweight fight after the main event pitting his sister atomweight champion Angela Lee against strawweight titleholder Xiong Jing Nan was scrapped due to an injury to Lee.
Singaporean Lee ended the fight against Xiong just three minutes into the fight with a ground and pound attack to the delight of his home crowd.
“I train extremely hard for this,” he said.
As a replay of the ending was shown on the giant screen, Lee explained that he executed to perfection the fight plan that they laid down in training.
“This is what we’ve trained, we trained low side kicks a thousand times in practice and hard work really does pay off,” he said.
Meanwhile, Giorgio Petrosyan took down Songraw Petchyindee via unanimous decision in the super series (kick boxing) - catchweight (71.0kg) division.