Nothing about rising ONE Championship star Carlo Bumina-ang’s life was out of the ordinary before he discovered mixed martial arts, but everything changed when he did.

The Filipino warrior is slated to make his U.S. primetime debut this Friday, August 2, when he takes on Mongolian standout Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu in a bantamweight MMA bout at ONE Fight Night 24: Brooks vs. Balart inside the Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

Carlo Bumina-ang’s journey from a market vendor to aspiring MMA fighter

Growing up in the mountainous province of Baguio in the Philippines, Bumina-ang had a quiet and uneventful life, which he talked about in a recent interview with ONE. “I only started MMA in 2018. I entered as a student in our old gym. But before that, I had a small stall in Baguio Market, selling bananas from around 2016 to 2018,” he said.

He further added, “I would help my mother deliver her harvest, and I’d take some for myself to sell them at the market in my own stall. That was pretty much my life back then.” The 30-year-old athlete felt there was more to life than what he was doing, and he was determined to find it.

Like many of his countrymen, Bumina-ang aspired to make a career out of basketball, but his stocky build and unimpressive height made that nearly impossible. He turned to school and earned a degree in hotel and restaurant services from the Baguio School of Business and Technology, but that didn’t satisfy him.

“I was thinking to myself: I know I’m bound for something bigger. I finished college, I have a two-year degree, why am I stuck doing what I’m doing?” Bumina-ang said. Influenced by his older brother, Bumina-ang began training in the world-renowned Team Lakay gym in 2017. The renowned fighting stable won four World Titles the very next year, which inspired him to pursue MMA seriously.

Bumina-ang aims to make a statement at ONE Fight Night 24

The stable’s patriarch, Mark Sangiao, saw promise in the young ward and trained him to become worthy of wearing the national colors in various competitions. In the process, he won medals in the Vietnamese martial art Vovinam and kickboxing and later won two gold medals at the 2023 Pan-Asian Gi & No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu International Open.

After showcasing his achievements in multiple sports, Bumina-ang would harness all of it again to compete in MMA with hopes of rekindling the magic and prestige the team was once known for. The up-and-coming sensation got off to a great start in the world’s largest martial arts organization, going undefeated in six fights in the ONE Friday Fights series to earn a US$100,000 contract to compete in the promotion’s marquee shows.

In his first fight in U.S. primetime, Bumina-ang will get the opportunity to make a huge statement against Baatarkhuu. “The Tormentor” has a 3-1 record in ONE so far, with all three of his wins coming at the expense of Filipino fighters. Another win will surely secure his name as a threat in ONE’s stacked bantamweight MMA division, so fans should expect him to go all-out at ONE Fight Night 24.