Fabricio Andrade Believes He Will Breeze Through John Lineker Once Again

Fabricio Andrade is in the middle of a bitter feud with former ONE bantamweight champion John Lineker over the currently vacant belt, and he believes it is his to lose.

During a virtual press conference, Andrade told the International Business Times that he is more than capable of claiming the title this time around after having such a good experience in his fight camp.

"My training was perfect. This camp was much more enjoyable than the last one. Going into this fight, I already know I'm the No. 1 bantamweight in the world now. I come to this fight as a champion [in my mind]. I'm confident that I'm a better fighter and I'm coming to finish what I started in the first fight," Andrade said.

Their first matchup at ONE Fight Night 3 was originally supposed to be a title defense for Lineker, but the champion was stripped of his title after missing weight ahead of the bout and was fined for the infraction.

"Wonder Boy" was on his A-game for the better part of three rounds as he had repeatedly tagged Lineker with some hard shots both to the face and to the body.

However, that bout would be marred by two accidental knee strikes to the groin from Andrade towards Lineker–the second being enough to shatter the then-champ's groin guard and was rendered unable to compete because of the force of the hit.

This time around, Andrade's confidence is filled to the brim to the point that if "Hands of Stone" were to get into an exchange with him, it will certainly end badly for his fellow Brazilian.

"If he comes to fight, I will knock him out at the beginning of the fight, but in the first fight, we saw that he respects my game a lot. He was walking back a lot and trying to wrestle me–something that we agreed before the fight that we wouldn't do," he initially mentioned.

"I'm not going to give him any chances. I'm gonna take my time; I have 25 minutes to finish him. I don't believe I need the whole 25 minutes to finish him, but I'm just gonna be patient and I'm gonna be ready to knock him out in any part of this fight."

When it was announced that Lineker would not be able to exchange pleasantries with him over the digital press conference, Andrade repeatedly spoke about his disappointment with the ex-bantamweight king.

However, he took it as a positive and concluded that Lineker must have decided to miss the press conference in order to focus on his training and give him a better shot at ending Andrade's title aspirations.

Andrade has not seen the loss column since joining ONE Championship in July 2020 across six bouts and wants nothing more than to finally reach the mountaintop.