Brazilian grappling dynamo and reigning ONE bantamweight world champion Bibiano “The Flash” Fernandes is easily one of the best to ever set foot inside a ONE Championship cage or ring.
On November 9 at ONE: HEART OF THE LION in Singapore, Fernandes faces another tough challenge in reigning ONE interim bantamweight world champion Kevin “The Silencer” Belingon in a ONE bantamweight world championship unification matchup.
Win or lose, it’s hard to argue that Fernandes is already the most dominant world champion in ONE Championship history, and here are a few reasons why:
- His record reads like a “Who’s-Who” in mixed martial arts
Even before coming over to ONE Championship, Fernandes was already a highly-experienced competitor with an impressive resume. He had already faced the likes of Urijah Faber, the late-great Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, Masakazu Imanari, and Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen.
When he finally planted his flag on ONE Championship, he went on to face the likes of Soo Chul Kim, Kevin Belingon, Andrew Leone, Reece McLaren, and Martin Nguyen.
- He was already a world champion before coming to ONE
Even before he became a world champion in ONE, Fernandes was already a two-division world champion in DREAM, capturing the Japan-based promotion’s featherweight championship back in 2009 and then also becoming the promotion’s bantamweight king two years later.
- He wasted no time in becoming a champion in ONE
It took Fernandes only two contests to become a champion in ONE.
After winning his debut against Gustavo Falciroli in 2012, Fernandes’ next bout was for the ONE interim bantamweight world championship, defeating Koetsu Okazaki.
Just five months later, Fernandes unified the bantamweight titles by defeating inaugural champion Soo Chul Kim, and the rest, as they say, is history.
- He holds the record for most world championship defenses in ONE
Fernandes has been a champion in ONE since May of 2013. Since then, he’s run through every single challenger that has been put in front of him.
Seven men have tried to dethrone Fernandes, and all of them have come short, and all of them have seen the best that the Brazilian star had to offer.
At ONE: HEART OF THE LION on November 9, Belingon will try his luck once more and look to end Fernandes’ historic title reign.
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- He has outlasted countless champions
In ONE Championship’s seven-year history, a handful of stars have captured and relinquished ONE world championship gold.
Fernandes however, is one of the very select few who has yet to lose his title.
Since becoming a champion, Fernandes has outlasted 15 world champions across ONE’s mixed martial arts weight divisions, including the likes of Shinya Aoki, Eduard Folayang, Yoshitaka Naito, Adriano Moraes, Marat Gafurov, Roger Gracie, Vitaly Bigdash, Nobutatsu Suzuki, and Martin Nguyen.
Fernandes has simply become a constant as ONE Championship’s bantamweight king.
- He is the true personification of a martial artist
No doubt, Fernandes is a world-class mixed martial artist and champion.
Inside the cage, his skills are top notch, but outside the cage, Fernandes the person is equally as amazing.
A true student of martial arts, Fernandes embodies the core values of Asian martial arts: integrity, humility, honor, respect, courage, discipline, and compassion.
Fernandes is a martial artist in every sense of the word.
Come ONE: HEART OF THE LION, whatever the result may be in his bout against Belingon, Fernandes has already established his place in ONE history.
More importantly, “The Flash” has already cemented his legacy as ONE Championship’s most dominant world champion in history.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 11/5/2018.