By Jan Carlo Anolin
Brandon Vera graced the ONE: Fire & Fury Friday night at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay with an important announcement — “The Truth” is ready to defend his heavyweight title.
Brandon Vera (ONE Championship photo)
Mixed martial arts action will return to Manila on May 29 at the same venue, headlining Vera’s match in ONE: Code of Honor as per ONE’s official website.
After Team Lakay’s Danny Kingad’s unanimous decision victory over Chinese foe Xie Wei, the 42-year-old ONE heavyweight king took center stage and announced the comeback fight against a still unnamed challenger.
“That heavyweight title is ours. Sa atin ‘yun,” the 42-year-old Filipino-American said, drawing cheers from the crowd.
“We have people challenging me thinking they can take our belt from us. I encourage, lahat ng ating kababayan [to watch], all our Filipino athletes to get on the card.
“Pataasin natin ang gating bansa. May 29, let’s show the world why Philippines is awesome.”
This will be Vera’s third world title defense in the promotion, hoping to add another first round knockout in his record.
In December 2014, Vera stopped Igor Subora of Ukraine in the first round to take the title and came back the following year with a knockout win against Taiwanese Paul Cheng.
“The Truth” defeated Japanese grappler Hideki Sekine via technical knockout in December 2016 and had another knockout victory against Italian striker Mauro Cerilli.
Vera’s quest, however, came to a halt after yielding to Myanmar’s Aung La N Sang, middleweight and light heavyweight title holder, via technical knockout in the second round last October.
Source: Manila Bulletin
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