His nickname, “Reug Reug,” means someone who is invisible. But anonymity is no longer a reality for Oumar Kane, the new ONE Championship heavyweight MMA world champion.

In the main event of the ONE 169 show in Thailand on Friday, Kane won a five-round split decision over Anatoly Malykhin, who entered the ring as a three-division champion — holding the promotion’s heavyweight, light heavyweight, and middleweight MMA title belts. Malykhin was handed the first loss of his pro MMA career and was relieved of one of his belts, while Kane, who hails from the Muslim-majority nation of Senegal, became a world champion in just his eighth pro MMA fight.

While Kane (7-1) spent a lot of time during the fight backed into a corner of the boxing-style ring (not a traditional MMA cage), where Malykhin landed some hard punches, Kane fired back with heavy artillery of his own. He appeared to knock Malykhin down with a shot in the fifth round, although it may have been more of a slip. Kane also landed some powerful head kicks, but where he really shined was by winning the wrestling exchanges, using his strength and leverage to keep Malykhin (14-1) wrapped up and ineffective for long stretches.

On the broadcast, it was announced that the 32-year-old Kane — who now makes his home in Dubai — is the first African champion in the history of the ONE promotion, which launched in 2011 and crowns champions across several weight divisions in MMA, Muay Thai, kickboxing, and submission grappling.

In the ONE 169 co-main event, another Muslim superstar, Rodtang, defeated Jacob Smith by unanimous decision in what was supposed to be a battle for the flyweight Muay Thai world championship. However, Rodtang failed to make the 135-pound limit by half a pound and was stripped of his title. If Smith won on Friday, he would have been crowned champion, but the belt would remain vacant should Rodtang prevail. In his typical crowd-pleasing style in his home country — albeit with a little too much clowning around — Rodtang controlled the action, bloodied Smith’s face with an elbow, and won without ever being in real danger.

Other matches on the ONE 169 card included Jackie Buntan beating Anissa Meksen by unanimous decision for the women’s strawweight kickboxing championship, Ahmed Mujtaba of Pakistan losing by submission to Kade Ruotolo in a lightweight MMA bout, Amir Aliakbari of Iran losing by submission to Marcus Almeida in a heavyweight MMA bout, and Mohamed Younes Rabah of Algeria beating Eddie Abasolo by decision in a featherweight Muay Thai bout.