Lea Bivins situated for debut against Zeba Bano at ONE 159

Newly-signed Lea Bivins (left) will make her debut against Zeba Bano (right) at ONE 159 | [Photos: @lea.bivins on Instagram/ONE Championship]
Newly-signed Lea Bivins (left) will make her debut against Zeba Bano (right) at ONE 159 | [Photos: @lea.bivins on Instagram/ONE Championship]

ONE 159 added a new fight to its card, with 19-year-old Lea Bivins making her ONE Championship debut against Zeba Bano on July 22.

MMA Mania announced that the teenage strawweight prospect has signed with ONE Championship and will figure in her first match for the promotion in the upcoming event in July.

Bivins trains out of House of Moons, a jiu jitsu and Pankration gym in California. ‘First Moon’ is a national wrestling champion, a multiple-time North American Grappling Association champion, and a US Fight League champion. She heads to her first professional MMA bout since going 3-0 in her amateur MMA career.

Recently, she trained with ONE women’s atomweight world champion Angela Lee and her family over at United MMA in Hawaii.

She will be going up against an Indian national wushu and kickboxing champion in Zeba Bano. ‘Fighting Queen’ carried her success in the striking arts over to MMA where she went undefeated in her first six bouts, finishing five of her opponents in the process. The 23-year-old is looking to bounce back quickly after absorbing her first career MMA loss against Muay Thai star Nat Jaroonsak at ONE 157.

The battle between Bivins and Bano at ONE 159 will showcase two of the newest faces in ONE Championship’s women’s strawweight division. ONE Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong said in an interview earlier this year that the promotion signed an ‘army’ of strawweights to offer fresh challenges to division queen Xiong Jing Nan.


Two world titles will be on the line at ONE 159

ONE 159 promises to be another exciting card and will be headlined by two world title bouts.

Two-division world champion Reinier de Ridder will put the ONE middleweight world championship on the line against Vitaly Bigdash in the main event.

Bigdash earned his chance to re-claim the gold he once held after capping off his trilogy with Aung La N Sang at ONE: Full Circle earlier this year. For his part, De Ridder defended his crown in the same card by dominating Kiamrian Abbasov for a third-round submission victory.

Meanwhile, the ONE interim atomweight Muay Thai world title will be contested by Janet Todd and Lara Fernandez in the co-main event. Todd is looking to claim a world title in a second sport, while WBC and ISKA world champion Fernandez is hoping to add another world title to her collection.

More bouts are expected to be revealed in the coming weeks.

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