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Vitaly Bigdash is set to return to ONE Championship to battle Fan Rong. That match is slated to happen at ONE: Winter Warriors II on December 17 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Bigdash lost the title against Aung La Nsang during their rematch in ONE Championship: Grit and Glory way back in June 2017. Since then, he has had just two fights. The first was a TKO loss against Leandro Ataides and the most recent was a submission win over Yuki Niimura in December 2018.
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The 37-year-old Russian fighter has been away from ONE Championship for over three years and will take on the much younger Fan Rong who is currently 21 years old. Interestingly, he was training with his Chinese opponent not so long ago:
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"He’s quite a strong fighter and we met each other once during a training camp in Tiger Muay Thai but you know, we’re just training together, we didn’t have a chance to work together in sparring or something in Thailand. What I can say is he’s a strong fighter and then the rest, we will see in the fight," Bigdash said in an interview with ONE Championship.
Rong has won his last two matches in ONE Championship after losing his debut fight against Reiner de Ridder. He currently owns a professional record of 14-2 and eight of those wins came via submission.
Heading into this bout, Bigdash has a professional MMA record of 10-2 and half of those wins came via submission. For him, he's just looking to focus on winning his upcoming bout in any way possible:
"I’m not a fan of predicting the fights and all but, of course, everything that God wills. Hopefully, I will do my best to finish him but the rest, God will judge."
Bigdash feels that the ONE Championship middleweight division just got more competitive
Since Bigdash took time off from competing in ONE Championship, he has monitored the progress of Asia's premier MMA organization and feels that the middleweight division has gotten deeper.
Reinier de Ridder is currently the reigning middleweight champion and has held the belt since October 2020. Bigdash is also impressed by the champion's performances in ONE Championship:
"There were a lot of good fighters who joined our division and all of them are strong but the most I’m impressed with is the owner of the belt so he’s really good in that."
