Champ to Defend Crown May 15 in The Inner Circle

The most anticipated heavyweight rematch in ONE Championship history is official.

Reigning ONE Heavyweight MMA World Champion Oumar Kane will defend his crown against Russian rival Anatoly Malykhin in the main event of The Inner Circle on Friday, May 15, live from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

The bout was originally set for ONE 173 in November 2025 before Kane suffered a car accident in Dubai and had to withdraw from the fight.

He has since made a full recovery and is ready to settle unfinished business against the Russian, who has spent the intervening months taking verbal shots at the champion online, claiming Kane was avoiding the rematch. Oumar Kane fired back with a message of his own, making clear he had no reason to fear a man he had already beaten.

Oumar Kane Ready to Prove First Win Was No Fluke

Oumar Kane’s story is one of the more remarkable in all of combat sports. The 34-year-old star built his reputation as a national hero in Senegalese wrestling before transitioning to MMA and taking the heavyweight division by storm.

Standing 6 feet tall and carrying a 7-1 ONE record, “Reug Reug” has claimed six MMA victories inside the promotion since his debut, four of them via finish, while riding a four-bout winning streak into the rematch.

The months following the ONE 173 withdrawal have not been idle ones for the champion. Oumar Kane’s public response to Malykhin’s online taunts made clear that a fully healthy version of him carries no anxiety about facing the Russian again, and his confidence is rooted in the fact that he has already solved the puzzle once before.

Malykhin Arrives Desperate to Reclaim Heavyweight Gold

Few fighters in ONE Championship history have carried more into a rematch than Malykhin. The 38-year-old entered his first meeting with Oumar Kane as ONE’s first-ever three-division champion, an undefeated force who had bulldozed every opponent placed in front of him.

Oumar Kane not only ended that unbeaten run, but he stripped away the heavyweight crown, leaving the Russian with just his ONE Middleweight and Light Heavyweight MMA World Championships.

Malykhin’s 6-1 ONE record includes six victories all coming via finish, a testament to the finishing power that made him one of the most feared heavyweights in the promotion’s history before Oumar Kane arrived to hand him his first career defeat. His 14-1 overall mark still reflects one of the most dominant resumes in ONE Championship’s heavyweight division.

Rematch Could Bring Conclusion to Their Feud

Their first meeting took place in the main event of ONE 169 in 2024, which produced one of the most shocking results in the promotion’s recent history. “Reug Reug” outclassed the then-undefeated three-division champion via split decision, handing Malykhin his first career loss while simultaneously stripping him of the heavyweight gold and writing his name into Senegalese sporting history.

Becoming Senegal’s first-ever ONE Heavyweight MMA World Champion was the crowning achievement of a career built on physical gifts and a wrestling pedigree sharpened across years of elite competition. Defending that title against the man from whom he took it, inside a stadium in Bangkok, gives the rematch a narrative weight that extends well beyond the promotional stakes.

Standing 5-foot-11 against Oumar Kane’s 6-foot frame, Malykhin has relied on explosive power and relentless pressure. The split decision loss at ONE 169 was close enough to suggest that a different night or a different moment might have produced a different result.

Watch The Inner Circle live on Friday, May 15, exclusively at live.onefc.com.