Bibiano Fernandes first faced off with Kevin Belingon in January 2016, and the two have since spent more than 40 minutes together, competing inside a cage.
At this weekend’s ONE Championship 100 event, they’ll meet for the fourth time, and bantamweight champ Fernandes (23-4) admits that while he wasn’t initially excited about being paired again with Belingon (20-6), he’s since changed his mind.
“In the beginning, I thought, ‘Ah, man. Fighting one more time with this guy? I don’t feel like fighting this guy one more time,’” Fernandes told MMA Junkie. “But in the end, I told myself, ‘Bibi, you have to go fight this guy one more time.’ The reason is the way the last fight ended, it wasn’t a good end. I don’t want to end that way. I won, but not the way I wanted to win. I’m very thankful that I won, but I don’t like the way the result was earned.”
Fernandes submitted Belingon in the pair’s initial 2016 encounter. The second fight was Belingon take home a split-decision victory, though Fernandes still doesn’t agree with the call.
“I don’t know about the second one, but that’s OK,” Fernandes said. “We have two ways for it to go in there: Try to finish this guy, or sometimes the fights go to the judges. When it goes to the judges, I don’t control that.
“I will do my best to try and finish. I will try to win the fight.”
The November 2018 result was close enough that ONE officials decided to run it back four months later, though the result of that trilogy contest was no less satisfying: What was shaping up to be a good contest was halted in the third round, when Belingon elbows to the back left Fernandes unable to continue and declared the winner via disqualification.
“I’m not going in there with any emotion or angry, but the way he fought, I didn’t agree,” Fernandes said. “I always try to fight clean in the fight. I don’t kick people in the groin. I don’t elbow people in the back of he head. I don’t have emotions. This is my job. The day of the fight, I will step in there, and I hope I can get I get the knockout. But I don’t have any hard feelings.
“I know he will try to do anything he can to win the fight – like, anything. He doesn’t want to lose. He has a fear of losing, and he’ll do anything to avoid it.”
Fernandes and Belingon meet at “ONE Championship 100: Century – Part 2,” which takes place Sunday at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. It’s the penultimate matchup on a full day of MMA that features two complete cards from the promotion.
Despite being such familiar foes, Fernandes insists it’s not grudge match.
“For me, because I come from jiu-jitsu, there are guys I’ve had to face seven times,” Fernandes said. “Sometimes you just have to fight the same guys over and over, but you go in there, and you do your job. But you have to control your mentality – I’m good, he’s good, so that means we have to compete. I’ll fight him every time I have to fight.”
Still, there are real stakes in the matchup, both personal and professional, and “The Flash” knows there’s only one way to ensure there’s no controversy this time out.
“For me, I want to go out there and win by knockout or by finish,” Fernandes said. “That’s what I want to do.”
ONE champ Bibiano Fernandes explains why fourth meeting with Kevin Belingon isn't personal