On Friday, Dec. 11, ONE Championship issued an official statement detailing the passing of 21-year-old Yang Jian Bing.
The Chinese flyweight was attempting to cut weight for his upcoming ONE Championship: Spirit of Champions main card bout when he reportedly suffered a sudden collapse on Thursday, Dec. 10. Yang reportedly suffered from severe dehydration and a suspected heat stroke before becoming “unconscious and non-responsive” upon arriving in the San Juan De Dios Hosptial in Pasay, Philippines, at 2:43 p.m. local time on Thursday.
A report from Dojo Drifter features an interview with hospital medical staff detailing that Yang was revived, but would sporadically lose his pulse.
The official statement from the organization listed the time of death at 12:06 p.m. on Friday afternoon. The promotion stated that the hospital medical reports are still being processed, but the initial cause of death was a cardiopulmonary failure, commonly known as cardiac arrest or congestive heart failure. The Dojo Drifter report added that medical staff had stated that Rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which the breakdown of muscle fibers due to direct or indirect muscle injury causes the release of muscle fiber contents Myoglobin and creatine kinase into the blood stream, was a possible cause of the complications. This condition can lead to renal failure and more serious outcomes such as heart complications due to high potassium levels and, on rare occasions, death.
Bing was scheduled to take on Filipino fighter Geje Eustaquio before the fight was canceled on Thursday when Yang was first reported to have severe dehydration from his weight cut. The young Chinese prospect had previously competed in ONE Championship on two seperate occasions, including a four-man, one-night tournament at ONE Championship: Dynasty of Champions in Guangzhou, China. Yang had twice previously made the weight cut to the flyweight limit of 56.7 kilograms.