ONE Championship
ONE Championship (formerly ONE Fighting Championship) is a Singaporean combat sports promotion. Founded on 14 July 2011 by entrepreneur Chatri Sityodtong and former ESPN Star Sports senior executive Victor Cui, its events have featured mixed martial arts (MMA), grappling, kickboxing and Muay Thai bouts. The promotion's first event was held on 3 September 2011 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium; they have since gone on to hold over 100 events across the Asian region. It is Asia's largest MMA promotion company, having been backed by Singapore's GIC and Temasek Holdings, in addition to ICONIQ Capital, Mission  Holdings, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital. According to Nielsen, ONE is amongst the world's top 10 biggest sports media properties in terms of viewership and engagement. Some of its notable athletes on the roster include Demetrious Johnson, Eddie Alvarez, Adriano Moraes, Christian Lee, Nieky Holzken, Andy Souwer, Angela Lee, Aung La N Sang, Eduard Folayang, Giorgio Petrosyan, Roman Kryklia, Rodtang Jitmuangnon, Andrei Stoica, Bogdan Stoica, Ismael Londt, Regian Eersel, Yodsanklai Fairtex, Kevin Belingon, Bibiano Fernandes, Roger Gracie, Brandon Vera, Shinya Aoki, Xiong Jingnan, Alain Ngalani and Ilias Ennahachi. History. Chatri Sityodtong stated his reasons for founding ONE was that  he believed that martial arts was Asia's "cultural treasure", yet there was no Pan-Asian promotion to unite the continent. Unlike western promotions, ONE's main goal was to promote "values of integrity, humility, honor, respect, courage, discipline, and compassion". On 26 October 2011, ONE announced the formation of the ONE FC network, an alliance of camps and promotions in the Asia and Oceania continents which enabled ONE to share fighters. The network includes kickboxing promotion GLORY, which allowed Dream 18 & Glory 4 Tokyo to feature ONE fighters Shinya Aoki, Bibiano Fernandes and Melvin Manhoef. On 31 March 2012 , ONE FC held its first female fight during at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. On 13 January 2015, the promotion announced it would be changing its name to simply ONE Championship. According to Victor Cui, the name change was made mostly for linguistic and cultural reasons. Submission grappling. In August 2016, ONE Championship announced a grappling tournament that followed IBJJF no-gi rules with Shinya Aoki, Angela Lee and Michelle Nicolini among the participants In May 2017, a "grappling super fight" with submission-only rules was held between Shinya Aoki and Garry Tonon in Singapore. Shortly after, Eddie Bravo announced that  he had been contacted by One to take part in a similar grappling super fight against Sakuraba In January 2018, another submission-only "grappling super fight" was held between Shinya Aoki and Marat Gafurov. In May 2021, ONE Championship announced that Gordon Ryan was due to debut in ONE Championship in a grappling match with Shinya Aoki to be held in August of that year. The match was later postponed by Ryan due to health issues. In February 2022, it was announced that Mei Yamaguchi would face Danielle Kelly and Reinier de Ridder would face André Galvão in a pair  of grappling matches on March 26, 2022, in an event to celebrate the organization's tenth anniversary. ONE Warrior Series. In November 2017, it was announced that ONE VP Rich Franklin would head up a competition called the "ONE Warrior Series", searching for up-and-coming martial artists in Asia. The prize is a six-figure contract with the organization, with the winner determined based on their performance instead of victories. ONE Super Series. On 12 February 2018, ONE Championship announced the establishment of the "ONE Super Series", which would feature kickboxing and Muay Thai bouts. The first event that  featured bouts under Muay Thai and kickboxing rules was in Manila on 20 April 2018. The promotion signed notable names such as Giorgio Petrosyan, Nong-O Gaiyanghadao and Fabio Pinca to feature on the bill. Since the inception of ONE Super Series, some events have used a five-roped ring, instead of the ONE circular cage, which had been used exclusively up until 2018. The ONE Super Series kickboxing bouts adopt the oriental ruleset. As of 2020, ONE Super Series kickboxing bouts use boxing gloves. In ONE Super Series Muay Thai bouts, open-finger 4 oz gloves are used. The  first ONE event to consist entirely of ONE Super Series contests was in Ho Chi Minh City on 6 September 2019. First boxing match. In July 2018, WBC Super flyweight world champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai would make the next defense of his belt at a ONE Championship event in his home city of Bangkok, Thailand. In what would be their first boxing match to be promoted, ONE collaborated with Nakornloung Promotion to put the matchup together with Iran Diaz. The match would headline on 6 October 2018. ONE Esports. In November 2018, ONE announced a partnership with Dentsu, Razer, and  Singtel to launch its new esports series in 2019. ONE Esports was then officially introduced later that year with Carlos Alimurung as its CEO. Cross-promotional partnerships. In January 2019, ONE entered into a partnership with Shooto, according to which Shooto champions would be give a contract with ONE Championship. They entered into a similar partnership with Indonesian promotion One Pride MMA in December 2020. ONE Infinity. On 13 February 2020, ONE announced the launch of the "Infinity" series, events consisting of at least three championship fights and a minimum of 12 world champions. Tinder partnership. In June 2021, ONE  announced a new partnership with Tinder to matchmake gamers to each other. The new partnership included a slew of content offerings, as well as new features on Tinder's app for esports and gaming fans. Broadcast. It has been broadcast by RCTI (2015–2017), GTV (2012, repeat only for 2020–2021), iNews (2015–2017, repeat only for 2020–present), Indosiar (delayed in 2013–2014), SCTV (delayed in 2018–2022), Vidio (live in 2018–present), Netverse (live in 2022–present) and NET. (2022–present) in Indonesia, MediaCorp Channel 5 (temporarily) in Singapore, ABS-CBN S+A/TV5/One Sports/LIGA Channel in the Philippines, MyTV in Cambodia , Astro Arena, TV9 and RTM in Malaysia, Workpoint TV and Thairath TV in Thailand, TV Tokyo and AbemaTV in Japan. On 30 January 2012, they signed a 10-year deal with ESPN Star Sports. ONE made its PPV debut at via iN DEMAND, Avail-TVN, DirecTV and Dish. Since May 2018, ONE events have been broadcast live and free on both their dedicated apps and YouTube channel in select locations. On 11 December 2018, ONE announced a three-year broadcast deal with Turner Sports in the United States that will bring live events to streaming service B/R Live and  recap shows on TNT. On 23 March 2019 ONE announced it had signed a multi-year deal with Star Sports in India. On 19 September 2019, it was announced that sports streaming service FITE TV would broadcast the promotion's two-part, 100th numbered event, . In November 2020, ONE announced a partnership with Facebook to distribute ONE Championship content on Facebook Watch and IGTV. On April 27, 2022, ONE announced a five-year distribution deal Amazon Prime Video, with Amazon to exclusively broadcast at least 12 events annually during prime time hours in the United States and Canada. Rules. Mixed  martial arts. ONE Championship uses the Global Martial Arts Rule Set, which "blends a combination of Best Practices from Asian and Non-Asian Rules". Matches vary in maximum length, depending on whether it is for a championship title. In all fights, each round can be no longer than five minutes. Most fights have a maximum of three rounds, with one minute breaks in between, but championship matches have a max of five rounds. Victory is attained by one of the following ways; knockout, submission, verbal tapout, technical knockout by referee stoppage, request for stoppage by cornerman, or by judges' decision . Three judges score the bout in its entirety, not round-by-round, utilizing the following criteria in descending order of importance: Illegal targets for strikes are the groin, throat, trachea, and the back of the head, neck or spine. Stomps to the head of a grounded opponent, small joint manipulation, head butting, hair pulling, eye gouging, orifice insertion, spitting, and grabbing onto the cage fence are also illegal. Takedowns must not result in "spiking or pile driver[s] to the head or neck". Soccer kicks to the head of a grounded opponent were previously legal in ONE, initially via an "open  attack" rule, which required fighters to get permission from the referee to use them. In September 2012, the company adopted the Pride Fighting Championships' rules on the technique, allowing fighters to use soccer kicks without asking for permission from the referee. Soccer kicks were banned entirely in August 2016 as part of the company's worldwide expansion plans. Sityodtong stated that despite studies showing that soccer kicks are the same as a normal head kick to a standing opponent because you cannot generate any more pivotal force, the technique invites "bad publicity". Weight divisions. ONE Championship currently uses ten  different weight classes: Unlike most MMA organizations, these weight limits are based on a competitor's "walking weight", rather than pre-fight weigh-ins. The change took place after the death of 21-year-old Chinese fighter, Yang Jian Bing (who was supposed to face Geje Eustaquio) on 11 December 2015, due to dehydration by weight-cutting in the Philippines. The promotion banned weight-cutting by dehydration in order to promote fighter safety. The promotion’s revised policy on weight mandated that athletes are monitored in their training camps, and have urine specific gravity tests to ensure they are hydrated  up to three hours ahead of their bouts. Since the new measures took effect, there have been no further serious incidents. The new system was well received by athletes in the organization, as well as other stakeholders in the MMA industry. Events. Scheduled events. Category: - 2011 in ONE Championship - 2012 in ONE Championship - 2013 in ONE Championship - 2014 in ONE Championship - 2015 in ONE Championship - 2016 in ONE Championship - 2017 in ONE Championship - 2018 in ONE Championship - 2019 in ONE Championship - 2020 in ONE Championship - 2021 in ONE Championship - 2022 in ONE Championship ("upcoming") Executive and production team. Its leadership  and executive team are its chairman Chatri Sityodtong whilst the CEO of International is Victor Cui who used to be a senior executive at ESPN Star Sports. Matches are made by matchmaker and Vice President of Operations, Matt Hume. In 2014, Rich Franklin became its vice president. The referees include Olivier Coste, Mohamad Sulaiman, Yuji Shimada, Kemp Cheng and Justin Brown for MMA matches, and Atsushi Onari and Elias Dolaptsis for ONE Super Series matches. The regular colour commentators for the television broadcast are Michael Schiavello and Mitch Chilson, although Josh Thomson, Jason Chambers, Bas Rutten and Renzo Gracie have  appeared as guest commentators. Dominic Lau is the cage announcer. Nam En Ju, Siena, Lee Ji Na, Kim Ji Na, Chun Se Ra, Eun Ji Ye and Choi Ye Rok are ring girls. Fighter salary. Fighter salaries in Asia are not publicly disclosed, unlike in the US, so information about ONE FC's fighter purses is not in the public domain. However, in January 2014 Ben Askren revealed that he was being paid a minimum of US$50,000 per fight as well as a US$50,000 win bonus. A cash bonus known as the "ONE Warrior bonus" was introduced on  9 July 2014 and implemented for the first time at on 11 July 2014. An award of US$50,000 is given out at the end of certain events to the fighter who impresses the most in terms of: Victor Cui stated that bonuses would be handed out on a discretionary basis: "For every event, the bar will be very, very high. If a few fighters impress me, then I will hand out the bonus to a few fighters. If no one impresses me, then no one will get it. Extraordinary performance deserves extraordinary rewards. Ordinary performances deserve ordinary rewards." The  ONE Warrior bonus of $50,000 was re-introduced in January 2022, with a minimum of one bonus and a maximum of five bonuses awarded at each event. Rankings. The rankings for the ONE's fighters are both recorded and updated when information has been obtained from the ONE's website. Tournament winners. ONE Grand Prix Champions Muay Thai GP Champions Malaysia GP Champions Cambodia GP Champions China GP Champions Myanmar GP Champions