Superbon Withdraws Through Injury As Liu Mengyang Faces Gabriel Pereira At The Inner Circle On May 22
The ONE Featherweight Kickboxing World Title fight is off. The division’s pecking order, however, is still very much up for debate.
ONE Featherweight Kickboxing World Champion Superbon has been forced to withdraw from The Inner Circle on Friday, May 22 through injury, postponing his scheduled title defence against “Spirit Dragon” Liu Mengyang.
Liu remains on the card and will now face Venezuelan contender Gabriel Pereira in a featherweight kickboxing bout that carries its own significant divisional stakes. The new headline act sees contracted ONE athlete Yod-IQ Or Pimolsri take on unbeaten Russian Kiamran Nabati in a bantamweight Muay Thai main event.
Liu’s trajectory since arriving in ONE Championship has been among the most striking of any fighter in the featherweight division. The 23-year-old Shunyuan Fight Club representative announced himself with a unanimous decision over Masaaki Noiri after dropping the future interim champion with a right hook just 20 seconds into the opening round, then backed it up with a second-round knockdown en route to another unanimous decision over Shadow Mavinn.
His defining statement came at ONE Friday Fights 137 in December 2025 — a 52-second calf kick knockout of ONE Featherweight Muay Thai World Champion Tawanchai PK Saenchai that immediately reframed how the featherweight landscape needed to be discussed. A narrow split-decision loss to Mohammad Siasarani remains the only blemish on a 40-2 slate, and Liu arrives at May 22 as the clearest threat to Superbon’s title whenever that fight is rescheduled.
Pereira makes the step up in opposition with a perfect 40-1 professional record and two promotional wins behind him. The Eagle Muay Thai representative defeated TAKU by unanimous decision on debut at ONE Friday Fights 131 before edging Hiroki Suzuki by majority decision at ONE Friday Fights 139 in January. Back-to-back wins at featherweight have established him as a credible contender, and a victory over Liu would accelerate his title conversation immediately.
In the main event, Yod-IQ brings an 11-fight ONE winning streak and a contract earned on the back of a first-round head kick knockout of Alexey Balyko at ONE Friday Fights 137.
Nabati counters with an unblemished 22-0 record, a promotional debut stoppage of Suablack Tor Pran49, and a unanimous decision over former ONE Bantamweight Muay Thai World Champion Nong-O Hama. Two contracted, dangerous, unbeaten-or-near-unbeaten strikers — the featherweight title postponement has done nothing to reduce the quality of what May 22 delivers.
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