Due to the UFC’s stronghold over the world of mixed martial arts, it’s hard to run a successful MMA promotion that can compete with the world’s premiere MMA organization.
However, Victor Cui has managed to garner success in Asia with his promotion, ONE Championship.
On May 26, ONE will host ONE Championship: Dynasty of Heros, which will feature undefeated welterweight Ben Askren and undefeated atomweight Angela Lee defending their ONE titles. The event will take place at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore.
Just three week later the UFC will host an event at the same venue. The event will feature former UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Holly Holm fighting former title challenger Bethe Correia in the main event.
“It’s not a surprise that the UFC is there – I’ve heard of them before, I don’t know if you know that,” Cui said during a conference call. “They were in Asia and had an office in Asia several years, maybe five years or something like that, long before we even created ONE Championship. So they had their game plan and they had their thing.
“For us, we’ve always just focused on what we know and what we believe in ONE Championship: Telling the great stories of the athletes who represent the values of martial arts. Of honor, respect, hard work, humility, dedication, all these great values that Asians respect and admire. We’ve focused on our story, and the story of our athletes and telling that. And just doing our business plan as I see what makes sense for Asia.”
Cui does not appear to be intimated by the UFC doing events in ONE’s market. However, he does say ONE Championship will need to make sure the promotion produces entertaining events.
“Now, from a business side, the challenge for us as an organization is to make sure that we over deliver to our fans, overdeliver in excitement, overdeliver in entertainment and provide great value. That’s up to ONE Championship to innovate.”
