“I thought it was going to go away” - Fabricio Andrade reveals he sustained a slew of injuries after his win over John Lineker
The past year was polarizing for ONE bantamweight MMA world champion Fabricio Andrade.
While he achieved his dream of becoming a ONE world champion, he also suffered multiple injuries leading up to his first loss in ONE Championship.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Andrade revealed he suffered a broken hand in his world title win over John Lineker at ONE Fight Night 7 in February 2023.
The injured hand, however, was just the start of Andrade's problems.
Fabricio Andrade said:
"Yeah, so after I broke my hand on the Lineker fight, I went to physio [the physiotherapist] and my hand was good. But I start to feel like a bit of pain down the neck. I thought it was going away with the physiotherapy."
He added:
"I went to the doctors in Thailand to check everything, and nobody thought anything was wrong, and so I kept doing the physiotherapy."
Despite his therapy sessions, Andrade suffered lingering back issues when he fought Jonathan Haggerty for the vacant ONE bantamweight kickboxing world title.
Haggerty, who already held the ONE bantamweight Muay Thai world championship, ultimately knocked Andrade out in the second round of their ONE Fight Night 16 headliner in November 2023.
Andrade, who trains at Tiger Muay Thai in Thailand, has since returned to his home country of Brazil to recover from his injuries.
Fabricio Andrade is hellbent on getting back at Jonathan Haggerty
Fabricio Andrade has no plans of sitting on his loss for too long.
'Wonder Boy' is an unstoppable force in MMA with a perfect 6-0 record in ONE Championship, but Jonathan Haggerty got his number in kickboxing.
Haggerty is the first and only person to beat Andrade in the promotion, and the bantamweight MMA king plans to take revenge against the two-sport world champion.
In the same interview, Andrade said:
"I would like to get the fight [defeat to Haggerty] back you know, I don't think I was 100 percent for the fight and I would like to get a rematch, you know. Losing is hard for me. I don't like to lose, so I wanna get that fight back as well."
Watch Andrade's entire interview below: