Vancouver-based fighter Bibiano (The Flash) Fernandes travels the world

Another title defence, another stamp in Bibiano (The Flash) Fernandes’ passport.

This time it’s China for the Vancouver-based Brazilian-born MMA fighter, who puts his One Championship bantamweight title on the line Saturday against Kevin (The Silencer) Belingon of the Philippines.

The venue is Changsha SWC Stadium in Changsha, some 10,000 kilometres from Fernandes’ West Coast home.

“The key is that’s my job,” the 35-year-old Fernandes said of the travel. “I have to love what I do … I like representing mixed martial arts. I go there, do my job, I come back home to my family and the kids. I think it’s a pretty good job.”

Fenandes (18-3-0) has not lost in five years and is currently riding a 10-fight win streak. The 28-year-old Belingon (13-4-0) is 4-4-0 in the Asian-based One Championship since 2012. Still Fernandes says he is a dangerous striker with good kicks.

“A very tough kid,” he said.

Fernandes has long been a road warrior.

With then-champion Soo Chul Kim of South Korea sidelined by injury, Fernandes defeated Japan’s Koetsu Okazaki in May 2013 in Pasay City, the Philippines, to win One Championship’s interim title. He then unified the 135-pound championship by defeating Kim in October 2013 in Kallang, Singapore.

He has since beaten Japan’s Masakatsu Ueda and South Korea’s Dae Hwan Kim in the Philippines and Finland’s Toni Tauru in Myanmar.

The five-foot-seven Fernandes started his pro career in his native Brazil, in Manaus, in 2004.

Amazingly he has fought in his adopted country just twice — both times in Calgary in 2008 — and only once in the U.S., in Reno in 2006. The U.S. fight was a loss to Urijah (The California Kid) Faber, who went on win a WEC title and star in the UFC.

“I was just a jiu-jitsu guy at that time,” Fernandes said.

After the Calgary fights, he fought nine times in Japan where he won the Dream featherweight and bantamweight titles before switching to One Championship in 2012.

Fernandes had a tough childhood in Brazil. After his mother died, he lived for a time with his aunt in the Amazon.

He was 14, selling ice cream and cleaning houses, when he started learning jiu-jitsu. The mother of a friend paid for his lessons to start with. When that ran out, he cleaned the gym to pay for them.

Fernandes did it for almost four years. Then his coach told him to quit cleaning and focus on becoming a world champion. Fernandes did just that, going on to win world, Brazilian and Pan-Am jiu-jitsu titles before switching his focus on MMA.

He was at a jiu-jitsu competition in California a decade ago when he was invited to come train in Canada. He liked what he saw and stayed.

He met his wife here, they now have three boys and he is in the process of applying for Canadian citizenship.

While he fights around the world, he says people recognize him at home. “I don’t know how, they do.”

“Canada, Vancouver has been very good to me,” he added. “I’m very blessed.”

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