ONE Championship: Visions of Victory has its main event set, as flyweight champion Adriano Moraes will face Australia’s Reece McLaren.
After losing his ONE flyweight title in 2015 to Kairat Akhmetov, the last two years were all about bouncing back for Adriano Moraes. Having won interim gold in 2016, then unifying the titles last year — and avenging his loss to Akhmetov — Moraes (17-2) finished the year as ONE Championship’s reigning, defending flyweight king. Now, he’ll start 2018 with the second title defense of his current reign, taking on Australian Reece McLaren.
A hyped up prospect upon his arrival in ONE, Reece McLaren (10-5) won his first two fights with the company at bantamweight. That landed him a title shot against Bibiano Fernandes, which resulted in a close split decision loss for the Australian. After being knocked out in his subsequent fight against Kevin Belingon last August, McLaren made the decision to drop to flyweight. It was the right call, as he submitted Anatpong Bunrad in his debut in the weight class at ONE Championship: Legends of the World in November.
Closing out the year on a win, McLaren now gets another shot at gold in ONE Championship. Moraes, however, will be no easy task; the Brazilian is easily one of the top flyweights in the world.
ONE Championship: Visions of Victory takes place at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 9. In addition to the flyweight main event, the card includes the following bouts:
Agilan Thani vs. Amitesh Chaubey
Christian Lee vs. Kazunori Yokota
Gianni Subba vs. Danny Kingad
Luis Santos vs. Kiamrian Abbasov
Michelle Nicolini vs. Iryna Kyselova
Ahmed Mujtaba vs. Ma Jia Wen
Muhammad Aiman vs. Burn Soriano
Jihin Radzuan vs. Puja Tomar
Hisyam Samsudin vs Jerome S. Paye
Riski Umar vs. Khori Sichan
