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Reigning and undisputed ONE bantamweight MMA world champion ‘Wonder Boy’ Fabricio Andrade, and former divisional king ‘Hands of Stone’ John Lineker, figured in two epic skirmishes the past year.
The first one ended in a No Contest ruling, after Andrade inadvertently struck Lineker with a knee to the groin, forcing a stoppage in action. The rematch took place months later, this time ‘Wonder Boy’ was much more careful, and walked away with a fourth-round TKO victory.
Both fights were absolute wars that left both men battered and bruised at the end of it all.
Speaking in a guest appearance on the Honey Badger Hour podcast on Spotify, Andrade talked about the first fight.
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He accused Lineker of taking the easy way out:
“I think the first fight, he was too relaxed. He just won the world title. He just beat Bibiano. He was a bit over confident. And he didn’t expect me to be that tough. And I got him in a lot of problems, and I hurt him a lot. And he had a way out, and he took it. In the first fight, it was very good too. I hurt him, he hurt me. You kinda know like you’re going for war.”
In the second fight, Andrade said it was much more competitive:
“I think after that fight he went back and started to do a real tough camp for himself to be prepared. Like if you see the way he shot for takedowns in the first fight compared to the second one, it was totally different. The way he was doing it in the second fight was different. I could see it in his eyes, he wanted the knockout. He was coming forward and I was hitting him all the time. I was getting a lot of damage. But he wasn’t stopping coming forward. So he wanted to win the fight, and he trained a lot for that.”
Andrade will return to action at ONE Fight Night 15, when he takes on ONE bantamweight Muay Thai world champion Jonathan ‘The General’ Haggerty for the vacant ONE bantamweight kickboxing world title.
Fans in the United States and Canada can watch the event live and for free on Amazon Prime.
