KEY POINTS

  • Bibiano Fernandes will defend his bantamweight title against John Lineker in the co-main event of ONE: Lights Out
  • Their matchup at ONE: Bad Blood was canceled due to Lineker being placed in COVID-19 health and safety protocols
  • Thanh Le's defense of the featherweight title against Gary Tonon will headline the event

Bibiano Fernandes and John Lineker are set to co-headline ONE: Lights Out on March 11.

ONE Championship announced the addition of the match on its website, with fans breathing a sigh of relief that the match will happen sooner than expected.

Their main event matchup at ONE: Bad Blood last Friday, February 11 after Lineker was placed in the organization’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols, which promoted the interim heavyweight title match between Anatoly Malykhin and Kirill Grishenko to the main event.

This would turn out to be the second time that Fernandes and Lineker’s fight would be canceled as their earlier meetup was set for ONE X back in December of last year.

The event ended up being rescheduled to March 26 due to a spike of COVID-19 cases in Singapore.

Fernandes and Lineker being suspended once again had many drawing parallels to the repeated cancellations between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson in the UFC.

Fans certainly hope that Fernandes and Lineker’s fight will finally come to fruition as all the words that need to be said between the two Brazilians have already been uttered.

Lineker previously revealed that his issues with the ONE bantamweight king started when he declared his intentions on fighting for the title, something that Fernandes took offense to as he held the title then.

Whoever comes out of the long-awaited matchup between Fernandes and Lineker will likely have either Kwon Won Il or Stephen Loman as the next challenger after both fighters revealed their desire to fight for the title very soon.

Headlining ONE: Lights Out is the featherweight title match between reigning champion Thanh Le and Gary Tonon–a fight that was also originally scheduled for ONE X.

ONE Championship also opted to raise the stakes for the card by adding a third world title to the event with strawweight Muay Thai champion Prajanchai P.K. Saenchaimuaythaigym defending his belt against Joseph Lasiri.

The undercard for the March 11 event is expected to be released in the coming days.

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