Chatri Sityodtong, ONE Championship CEO
Mixing Martial Arts: ONE Championship has it right
Casual MMA fans are often characterized as only wanting to see stand up brawls and no takedowns. You will hear boos from fans in brilliant grappling exchanges that aren’t “smesh” as popularized to modern fans by Khabib Nurmagomedov. But nobody will admit they want to go watch Muay Thai or kickboxing, despite the sport being exactly that. There’s even kickboxing and Muay Thai in 4 ounce, or MMA gloves. But fans refuse to go watch. The one promotion that has had success mixing events is, of course, ONE Championship.
The best example of one of ONE Championship’s mixing of martial arts events is the recent ONE X event held in March of 2022. That event featured MMA, Muay Thai, kickboxing, grappling, and a hybrid rules bout between Demetrious Johnson and Rodtang. The event was received very well and put on a fantastic night of fights, all things considered.
ONE Championship: Quality is the difference
Anyone remember Sparta Wyoming 4? No? It was a mixed martial arts card in the sense that it had multiple sports. It featured a kickboxing title fight between Nikki Cruz and Khortni Kamyron, Muay Thai with Joe Sanderson and Zach Krapf, MMA with Geno Shvedov and Noufel El Kasri. Oh, and a Lethwei bout with champion, Dave Leduc and Cyrus Washington. Remember it now? Yup. It’s that one fight you will vaguely remember, of course, because it was kind of the only real high level fight. Sure the other fighters were talented and put a lot of time into becoming good but it wasn’t high level.
Compare that to Rodtang vs. Jonathan Haggerty, Bibiano Fernandes vs. John Lineker, and Superbon vs. Giorgio Petrosyan. ONE Championship has even hosted grappling matches with the best in the world and also promoted a boxing match with World Champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. The thing is, quality matters.
It’s not enough of a selling point to feature multiple martial arts on one card. That’s cool and all, but I’m not going to tune in to watch two heavyweights from Ogallala, Nebraska be sweaty and lean on each other and then have to watch two strikers wing punches wildly in a kickboxing match. I want to see high level fights.
I want to see Superbon fight Marat Grigorian, Thanh Le and Garry Tonon, Reinier de Ridder vs. Aung La N Sang. I want to see the best. And, while ONE Championship may only contest with the UFC for the best MMA fighters, they do for a fact have some of the best Muay Thai and kickboxers in the world, hands down.
When people want to be entertained, especially in sports, they want to either have a vested interest (local team or family member participating) or want to see a high level contest. When it’s a large a stage as that of boxing and MMA, fans know what is possible. We’ve all seen Mike Tyson or Conor McGregor knock someone out in a incredible manner. Let’s see more of that, not just mid.
Fans want to be entertained by their fights. It doesn’t matter if it’s Muay Thai, MMA, kickboxing, or boxing. A good fight is a good fight. And ONE Championship knows how to do just that.
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In addition to covering the ONE Championship for My MMA News, Blaine Henry, the author, also analyzes fights from all combat sports across the globe.
Blaine Henry can be found on Twitter, on his podcast, and Patreon.
