One is an interesting promotion, but I’m not convinced by this article, which seems to be riding on PR rather than any real experience with MMA. The article positions One as different from the UFC...
One is an interesting promotion, but I’m not convinced by this article, which seems to be riding on PR rather than any real experience with MMA. The article positions One as different from the UFC in two aspects: Use of social media, and a focus on ‘family-friendly’ entertainment. Unfortunately, they seem to just be taking One’s CEO’s word for it. UFC also puts out a lot of social media content; without knowing their numbers, it’s impossible to know if ONE is doing it more successfully.
As for family friendliness, that’s really sketchy. ONE doesn’t use the Unified Rules of MMA, which are employed by the UFC, their biggest North American competitor Bellator, and many smaller promotions in NA and Europe. Instead, they launched their own ruleset that allowed, among other things, kicks and knees to the head of a grounded opponent, which are banned under the unified ruleset. I’m not sure if there’s any data that proves this to be objectively more dangerous than other techniques, but it certainly looks more brutal and is likely to put off a lot of casual watchers. Eventually, they banned soccer kicks to the head of a grounded opponent, but still allow knee strikes. (Soccer kicks, stomps and knees to the head of grounded opponents were a prominent feature of Pride FC, the long-defunct Japanese promotion that, at its height in the early 2000s, was a legitimate competitor to the UFC. Since it went under, there hasn’t been any question anymore: whoever’s the best in the UFC is the best in the world.)
On the other hand, they did introduce a rule change that is clearly designed to protect fighters: They banned weight cutting. Fighters are required to come in within a small percentage of their average weight over the previous several months, and they even do urinalysis to determine that the fighters are not dehydrated shortly before the fight. People have actually died from dehydration trying to cut weight, and it’s a process that’s at the very least highly unpleasant even when done safely. But you have to do it to be competitive unless the promotion actually introduces rules to prevent it. In other promotions like the UFC, the norm is for fighters to actually be at least one, sometimes two weight classes heavier in the cage than when they weigh in the day before, which is actually insane. It also leads to anticipated fights getting canceled frequently because people fail to make weight. If you go by average weight over several months, both potentially lethal dehydration and last-minute cancellations should be a non-issue.
That they’re still not profitable is also kind of worrying. The last time there was a legitimate competitor to the UFC in East Asia, it went under amid a scandal involving tax evasion and organized crime.
One is an interesting promotion, but I’m not convinced by this article, which seems to be riding on PR rather than any real experience with MMA. The article positions One as different from the UFC in two aspects: Use of social media, and a focus on ‘family-friendly’ entertainment. Unfortunately, they seem to just be taking One’s CEO’s word for it. UFC also puts out a lot of social media content; without knowing their numbers, it’s impossible to know if ONE is doing it more successfully.
As for family friendliness, that’s really sketchy. ONE doesn’t use the Unified Rules of MMA, which are employed by the UFC, their biggest North American competitor Bellator, and many smaller promotions in NA and Europe. Instead, they launched their own ruleset that allowed, among other things, kicks and knees to the head of a grounded opponent, which are banned under the unified ruleset. I’m not sure if there’s any data that proves this to be objectively more dangerous than other techniques, but it certainly looks more brutal and is likely to put off a lot of casual watchers. Eventually, they banned soccer kicks to the head of a grounded opponent, but still allow knee strikes. (Soccer kicks, stomps and knees to the head of grounded opponents were a prominent feature of Pride FC, the long-defunct Japanese promotion that, at its height in the early 2000s, was a legitimate competitor to the UFC. Since it went under, there hasn’t been any question anymore: whoever’s the best in the UFC is the best in the world.)
On the other hand, they did introduce a rule change that is clearly designed to protect fighters: They banned weight cutting. Fighters are required to come in within a small percentage of their average weight over the previous several months, and they even do urinalysis to determine that the fighters are not dehydrated shortly before the fight. People have actually died from dehydration trying to cut weight, and it’s a process that’s at the very least highly unpleasant even when done safely. But you have to do it to be competitive unless the promotion actually introduces rules to prevent it. In other promotions like the UFC, the norm is for fighters to actually be at least one, sometimes two weight classes heavier in the cage than when they weigh in the day before, which is actually insane. It also leads to anticipated fights getting canceled frequently because people fail to make weight. If you go by average weight over several months, both potentially lethal dehydration and last-minute cancellations should be a non-issue.
That they’re still not profitable is also kind of worrying. The last time there was a legitimate competitor to the UFC in East Asia, it went under amid a scandal involving tax evasion and organized crime.