The trilogy between Kevin Belingon and Bibiano Fernandes did not have the ending it deserved.
In a head-scratching finish, Kevin Belingon lost the ONE Bantamweight World Championship in the most embarrassing way possible. The fighter out of Team Lakay was disqualified in the third round to lose to Fernandes, Sunday evening at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan.
With this, Team Lakay lost its third championship in a span of three months. Joshua Pacio was stunned by Yosuke Saruta to drop the Strawweight belt back on January 19. Then six days later, Geje Eustaquio fell to Adriano Moraes to lose the Flyweight strap.
This time around, Belingon’s nightmare came true.
The hard-hitting striker out of Baguio was taken down by the Brazilian grappler early in the third stanza of the bout. However, Belingon landed a couple of sharp elbows to the back of Fernandes that resulted in a red card.
After five minutes, Fernandes told the officials that he could no longer continue with the bout, resulting in the immediate reading of the scorecards.
The 31-year-old Brazilian dominated the grappling aspect of the contest, while the Wushu artist was the aggressor on the stand-up during the first two rounds, as expected.
Belingon fell to 20-6, snapping his seven-fight streak. Fernandes goes up to 23-4 to become a two-time ONE world champion.
