ONE Championship

The Singapore-based pan-Asian promotion

ONE Championship was founded in July 2011 by Singaporean entrepreneur Chatri Sityodtong (a former Wall Street hedge-fund manager and lifelong Muay Thai practitioner) with the explicit goal of becoming the leading combat-sports promotion in Asia. The promotion has expanded to include not just mixed martial arts but also Muay Thai, kickboxing, and submission grappling, making it the most genre-diverse combat sports brand in the world.

ONE's headquarters is in Singapore, and its competitive footprint covers most of Asia — the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, China, India — with occasional events in the United States, Russia, and other markets. The Indonesian and Filipino MMA markets, in particular, are dominated by ONE Championship rather than the UFC, a distinction the promotion has cultivated since its early years.

Athlete-first weight cuts

The most distinctive operational feature of ONE Championship is the athlete-first weight-cut protocol. Where the UFC permits same-day weigh-ins with no hydration testing — allowing fighters to cut 20-30 lbs of water weight in the 24 hours before weigh-in and rehydrate to 15-20 lbs above contracted weight by fight time — ONE Championship requires:

• Weigh-in 24 hours before the bout, at the contracted weight or within 0.5 kg.
• A urine specific-gravity test verifying hydration. Failed tests result in the fighter being pulled from the bout.
• Weekly weight checks during fight week, with maximum allowable weight ranges enforced.
• Walking-weight contracts, where fighters are matched closer to their actual daily weight rather than a heavily-cut contract weight.

The result is that a ONE Championship lightweight (77.1 kg / 170 lbs by their contract weight) is physically equivalent to a UFC welterweight, and a ONE flyweight is the same size as a UFC bantamweight. Fighters who cross over between promotions — Demetrious Johnson, Eddie Alvarez, Sage Northcutt — have universally credited the ONE system with improving their cardio, recovery, and post-fight health.

Weight classes

ONE Championship uses metric weight classes (a distinction from the UFC's imperial system):

• Atomweight (52.2 kg / 115 lbs, women only)
• Strawweight (56.7 kg / 125 lbs)
• Flyweight (61.2 kg / 135 lbs)
• Bantamweight (65.8 kg / 145 lbs)
• Featherweight (70.3 kg / 155 lbs)
• Lightweight (77.1 kg / 170 lbs)
• Welterweight (83.9 kg / 185 lbs)
• Middleweight (92.9 kg / 205 lbs)
• Light Heavyweight (102.1 kg / 225 lbs)
• Heavyweight (120.2 kg / 265 lbs)

The kg/lb conversions are deliberate alignments to UFC-equivalent walking weights — the ONE flyweight champion is the size of a UFC bantamweight; the ONE lightweight champion is the size of a UFC welterweight.

Rule variations

ONE Championship uses a modified version of the Unified Rules of MMA:

• Soccer kicks and grounded knees: legal in some MMA bouts, with the legality signaled to the fighters before the bout starts. The legality reflects the Asian MMA tradition (PRIDE rules) that the promotion grew out of.
• Open scoring: scorecards are revealed to fighters between rounds, allowing fight pacing to be adjusted based on the judges' perception.
• KO grace count: a brief grace count is administered when a fighter is knocked down, similar to boxing's 10-count. This is unique among major MMA promotions.
• Scoring criteria emphasis: damage and near-finishes are weighted more heavily than control time alone. The system is designed to discourage stalling.

The multi-discipline approach

ONE Championship is unique in promoting four combat sports under a single brand:

• MMA: the largest portion of the schedule, with full Unified-Rules-adjacent bouts.
• Muay Thai: ONE's Muay Thai promotion is now the largest in the world outside Thailand, with stars like Rodtang Jitmuangnon, Superlek Kiatmoo9, and Stamp Fairtex.
• Kickboxing: ONE-rules kickboxing, including KO clinch knees and elbows in some variations.
• Submission Grappling: a no-time-limit submission-only ruleset with finishers like Shinya Aoki, Mikey Musumeci, and Marcus "Buchecha" Almeida.

Multi-discipline cards are common — a single ONE event might feature MMA, Muay Thai, and submission grappling bouts in the same broadcast.

Cultural footprint

ONE Championship has been particularly successful in markets where MMA was historically underdeveloped. The Indonesian MMA market is essentially the ONE market, with fighters like Eko Roni Saputra and Stefer Rahardian becoming national stars. The Filipino MMA market features Brandon Vera, Eduard Folayang, and the broader Team Lakay roster as ONE draws. In Japan, ONE absorbed much of the post-PRIDE talent pool and continues to feature veterans like Yoshihiro Akiyama and Yushin Okami.

The Demetrious Johnson era

Demetrious Johnson's 2018 trade from the UFC to ONE Championship — a one-for-one swap for welterweight Ben Askren — was the most significant athlete transfer in the promotion's history. Johnson's ONE Flyweight World Grand Prix win in 2019 and his eventual ONE Flyweight World Championship in 2022 (KO of Adriano Moraes via flying knee) validated the promotion's competitive credibility against the UFC.

The TNT broadcast deal

ONE Championship's US broadcast presence expanded significantly through a 2021 deal with TNT Sports, which broadcast ONE on TNT and TNT en Español from 2021 through 2023. The subsequent move to Amazon Prime Video for select US broadcasts has continued the US-distribution expansion.

The promotion's global subscription product, ONE Championship Pro, offers full event catalogs and live broadcasts directly to consumers.