Oumar “Reug Reug” Kane has become something of a viral sensation among MMA social media circles.
But the undefeated heavyweight champion of Senegalese wrestling plans on dominating his new sport in similar fashion, starting with his ONE Championship debut.
The 28-year-old Kane (1-0) – who stands at 1.93 metres – will face Hong Kong’s Alain “The Panther” Ngalani (4-5) at ONE: Unbreakable II in Singapore, to be broadcast on January 29.
“What I want to do is be the world champion and bring Senegal’s name in MMA where nobody ever thinks it would be,” Kane told SCMP MMA. “I’m proud to represent Senegal in MMA. I used to represent my country for the national team in wrestling.”
Kane flew in to Singapore from New York, where he has been travelling back and forth from his home country over the past few years to train MMA and work on his fitness.
“I will bring so many things with quality, whether it is boxing or wrestling, we’ll bring all things,” he said. “I was training for MMA, so I will come and do whatever I trained from Senegal or from New York. I will do whatever to win.”
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Kane had reportedly been set to fight Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida on the undercard of Demetrious Johnson’s title showdown with Adriano Moraes next month.
But SCMP MMA revealed the confirmation of his match-up with Ngalani last week, and Kane confirmed the fight with the 13-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champ Almeida fell through – though could not offer more details.
“Before, they let us know that we had to fight with Almeida,” he said. “But finally this fight didn’t happen, we cannot tell anything more. But what we can say is that after that they tell us we have to fight Ngalani. It was OK, so right now our priority is Ngalani, whom we respect very well. I’m very happy, I thank him and I’m proud to fight with him.”
Kane made his professional debut in Ares Fighting Championship in December 2019, getting a second-round TKO over Sofiane Boukichou (6-3). He had a second bout lined up with Ares, which fell through because of the pandemic.
“If you want to make something and God doesn’t make it happen so, it cannot move,” he said. “It was very difficult for other fighters to lose so much training, to train every day, every time, and then finally you cannot fight. Thank God we have Ngalani to fight.
“I am somebody who has fought his whole life. I want every day to try to fight. Even if there is no wrestling competition, I want to fight in MMA. ONE is a good thing, that’s why I came and joined.”
