ONE Championship Marks 100th ‘Live’ Event in October

By Jennie L. Ilustre

ONE Championship, Asia’s largest global sports media company promoting all disciplines of Martial Arts, will celebrate its 100th event on October 13 in Tokyo, Japan. Billed as “ONE: Century,” the championship event was broadcast “live” in the U.S. on TNT on October 12 at 11 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. 

“It is a big milestone for our company, featuring a double-header in one day, morning and afternoon,” said ONE Championship Group President Hua Fung Teh. HF, as associates call him, spoke in a phone interview from Singapore, where the company is based.

The week-long celebration, which began with the inaugural ONE Martial Arts Fan Fest from October 5, will surely delight fans. The festivities culminate in the blockbuster event.

“Featuring a record seven World Title bouts and 28 martial arts World Champions, fans will get to see the very best martial artists on the planet showcase their skills in these contests,” he added.

“The epic second card is headlined by two of the biggest bouts the world has ever seen,“ according to the company website.  “ONE Heavyweight World Champion Brandon Vera challenges for two-division titleholder Aung La N Sang’s ONE Light Heavyweight World Title. The greatest rivalry in ONE history comes to a conclusion, with reigning kingpin Bibiano Fernandes facing Kevin Belingon an unprecedented fourth time for the ONE Bantamweight World Title.”

ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Champion Rodtang Jitmuangnon makes his first World Title defense against Walter Goncalves. And the stakes couldn’t be higher when Giorgio Petrosyan faces Samy Sana with US$1 million and the ONE Featherweight Kickboxing World Grand Prix Championship on the line.

There’s more: Indian heavyweight superstar Arjan Bhullar makes his highly-anticipated ONE debut; Japanese legends Shinya Aoki and Mei Yamaguchi return to action; and for the first time ever, Shooto World Champions will battle Pancrase World Champions in four historic bouts.

For more details on the other events, visit www.onefc.com

Celebrating Success

Time to pop the champagne, raise the glasses and celebrate the company’s huge success! “This milestone highlights just how much the company has grown since it was founded in 2011,” said HF, who was with global private equity firm TPG Capital when mutual friends introduced him to Chatri Sityodtong, ONE Championship’s Founder, Chairman, and CEO.

ONE Championship, Asia’s largest global sports media property in history, is broadcast to over 2.6 billion potential viewers across over 140 countries around the world.

Recently, the company signed an eight-figure deal with Turner Sports and TNT. The future looks even brighter, with rapid expansion to other markets, platforms and new business lines like eSports and Athleisure. Sityodtong has announced expansion plans with HF, former CFO and now Group President, at the helm.

“Chatri and I, we are building a global business. We are putting not just Singapore, but indeed Asia, on the global sports map,” HF said. “In international sports, you have global leagues out of America and global leagues out of Europe, so why not a global league out of Asia?”

He added: “Martial Arts has been around for a long, long time. It has thousands of years of history. Why is it popular? For starters, the rules are very easy to understand. Also, it has different weight classes. It encourages participants. It does not matter if you’re light or heavy. And of course, it’s also because of iconic martial arts celebrities, like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee…”

 “Martial Arts originated in Asia, he noted.” But even though it originated in Asia, the whole world likes it. Its popularity is universal. You can count so many international martial arts movie stars like Chuck Norris, and Jean Claude Van Damme, to name a few.”

U.S. Market

To be sure, a large part of ONE Championships’ incredible success is Sityodtong. Chatri, himself a celebrated Muay Thai practitioner, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. degree from Tufts University. And with HF as “Chatri’s right hand on all matters and one of the key decision makers in the company,” as an associate pointed out, the company’s future is in good hands.

Next year, the company plans to enter the U.S. market with a spectacular event, either in L.A. or New York. “It could be in Madison Square Garden, but wherever it is, it has to be an iconic event,” Chatri said in a telephone interview.

In a separate interview, HF pointed out: “Martial Arts is very popular in the U.S., the market is there. We have a lot of fans in the U.S. Our events have been airing on TNT since the start of the year, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Both Chatri and HF have a keen grasp of the U.S. market. Chatri has lived in Boston, San Francisco and New York. Group President HF, who like Chatri holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, was born in Washington, D.C. and has lived in various U.S. cities too. He won a prestigious scholarship from the Singaporean government and earned a B.S. and M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from MIT.

ONE Championhip’s success can also be traced to its core values, which are as genuine as they are profound. The company is “a celebration of Asia’s greatest cultural treasure and its deep-rooted Asian values of integrity, humility, honor, respect, courage, discipline, and compassion.”

Remarked Chatri: “ONE Championship is on a mission to unleash real-life superheroes, celebrate values, ignite dreams, inspire nations, and change the world, through the power of media and the magic of storytelling. So when you joined us on our October 13th milestone, you honored our heroes. Whether you’re Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans…it’s about showcasing a culture we are proud of.”

Champion Chatri

Chatri is a self-made entrepreneur and lifelong martial artist from Thailand. His rags-to-riches life story has inspired millions around the world on BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and CNBC, among other media outlets. Most recently, Forbes selected Sityodtong as one of Asia’s next generation tycoons. Financial Times named him “Asia’s King of Martial Arts.” FOX Sports dubbed him Asia’s 3rd Most Powerful Person In Sports.

Chatri is a certified senior Muay Thai instructor under the legendary Kru Yodtong Senanan of the world-renowned Sityodtong Gym in Thailand. He also holds a Purple Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Master Renzo Gracie. He has over 35 years of martial arts experience as a student, a fighter, a teacher, and a coach.

He is also a perennial keynote speaker at the world’s top business conferences such as Forbes Global CEO Conference, Milken Institute, CNBC Asia Business Leaders Awards, Bloomberg Summit, YPO Edge, Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), Cannes Lions, Asian Leadership Conference, and others.

Chatri has been featured as the cover story for magazines such as Inc, Esquire, Playboy, CEO, Wealth, Tatler, The Peak, Millionaire Asia, and Black Belt. He is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools.

Chatri sees life as believing and engaging in something worthwhile, something bigger than oneself. So for him, it’s on to the next mountain to climb. For years now, Chatri has mounted a campaign to have Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) included in the Olympics. If not in 2024, then perhaps in 2028, “which looks more doable.”  MMA in the Olympics – why not? Chatri is a champion, and knows what makes one a champion, in sports as in life. He said, “If you look at the greatest success stories, whether in sports, business, entertainment, music, and all the other fields, one thing stands out. They never give up.”