ONE Championship

Founding and early history: 2011-2014

Entrepreneur Chatri Sityodtong founded One Fighting Championship (ONE FC) in July 2011 to unite Asia through martial arts, leveraging Singapore's infrastructure. The promotion debuted on 3 September 2011 with ONE FC: Champion vs. Champion, selling out the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Key milestones included the first female MMA bout in March 2012 and the crowning of inaugural champions in bantamweight (Soo Chul Kim), lightweight (Kotetsu Boku), featherweight (Honorio Banario), welterweight (Nobutatsu Suzuki), flyweight (Adriano Moraes), and middleweight (Igor Svirid) divisions between 2012 and 2014.

Name change and expansion: 2015-2019

Rebranded as ONE Championship in 2015, the promotion expanded into new disciplines and markets. It introduced the strawweight title (Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke, 2015), hosted its first Lethwei bout (2015), and crowned heavyweight (Brandon Vera, 2015), light heavyweight (Roger Gracie, 2016), and women's atomweight (Angela Lee, 2016) champions.

On February 12, 2018, ONE Championship announced the establishment of the ONE Super Series, which would feature kickboxing and Muay Thai bouts. The first event that featured bouts under Muay Thai and kickboxing rules was ONE: Heroes of Honor in Manila on 20 April 2018. The promotion signed notable names such as Giorgio Petrosyan, Nong-O Gaiyanghadao and Fabio Pinca to feature on the bill. Since the inception of ONE Super Series, some events have used a five-roped ring, instead of the ONE circular cage, which had been used exclusively up until 2018. The ONE Super Series kickboxing bouts adopt the oriental ruleset.

A historic 2018 trade with the UFC exchanged Ben Askren for Demetrious Johnson. The promotion also launched Muay Thai (Sam-A Gaiyanghadao, 2018) and kickboxing titles (Kai Ting Chuang, 2018), and hosted its sole boxing match (Srisaket Sor Rungvisai vs. Iran Diaz, 2018). The first ONE event to consist entirely of ONE Super Series contests was ONE Championship: Immortal Triumph in Ho Chi Minh City on 6 September 2019.

Since 2020, ONE Super Series kickboxing bouts use boxing gloves, while Muay Thai bouts use open-finger 4 oz gloves.

Further international expansion: 2020-Present

ONE raised 150 million in 2021, reaching a 1.35 billion valuation, and relocated to the Cayman Islands in 2022. It expanded into submission grappling (Mikey Musumeci, 2022) and debuted in the U.S. with ONE Fight Night 10 (2023). Notable milestones included Smilla Sundell becoming the youngest champion (17) in 2022 and a 2023 agreement to host events in Qatar.

In 2023, the promotion began a new series of weekly events called ONE Friday Fights, also known as ONE Lumpinee in Thailand, at Bangkok's Lumpinee Stadium, initially scheduling 53 events there during the year; the series was predominantly centered on Muay Thai and featured established Thai fighters and emerging prospects. Since then, Muay Thai bouts became increasingly prominent, while MMA and submission grappling were pushed into the background in ONE's weekly programming, although MMA remained a major part of the promotion's international events.

ONE Championship is operated by Group ONE Holdings, led by chairman/CEO Chatri Sityodtong, vice chairman Saurabh Mittal, president Hua Fung Teh, and CFO Jesley Chua. Matchmaking is overseen by VP of Operations Matt Hume, while former UFC champion Rich Franklin serves as a vice president. Key referees include Olivier Coste (MMA) and Elias Dolaptsis (Muay Thai/Kickboxing), with Dom Lau as ring announcer. English broadcasts feature commentators Mitch Chilson, Ray Flores, Brent Stover, and Rich Franklin, alongside guest analysts like Bas Rutten and Renzo Gracie. Former commentator Michael Schiavello departed in 2017.

Former co-founder Victor Cui left in 2022 to lead the Edmonton Elks, while ex-UFC champion Miesha Tate served as vice president from 2018 until her 2021 return to fighting.

Broadcast Partnerships ONE events air globally via networks like Vidio, Indosiar, and MDTV in Indonesia; MediaCorp Channel 5 (Singapore); RPTV/One Sports (Philippines); Workpoint TV/Channel 7 (Thailand); and AbemaTV (Japan). A 10-year deal with ESPN Star Sports began in 2012, with later agreements including Turner Sports (2018-2021 U.S. coverage on B/R Live/TNT), Amazon Prime Video (2022-2027 U.S./Canada rights), beIN Sports (2022 MENA expansion), Seven Network (2023 Australia via 7plus), ESPN (2025 New Zealand via Disney+) and Sky Sports (2023 UK/Ireland). Events also stream live on YouTube and Facebook Watch in select regions.

In August 2022, ONE Championship announced an anti-doping partnership with International Doping Tests & Management, a subsidiary of Drug Free Sport International, who will independently handle all testing of its fighters for "illegal substances", beginning with ONE 160 that month. Although the organization planned to introduce World Anti-Doping Agency standard testing in 2019, prior to its partnership with International Doping Tests & Management, ONE had not publicly drug-tested its athletes.

ONE Championship employs distinct rule sets across its disciplines:

Mixed martial arts

Using the Global Martial Arts Rule Set, bouts feature 4-ounce MMA gloves. Non-title fights have three 5-minute rounds; title fights extend to five rounds. Victory methods include KO, submission, verbal tapout, TKO, disqualification, or judges' decision. Judges prioritize near-finishes, damage, striking/control, takedowns, and aggression.

Illegal actions include strikes to the groin, throat, spine, or back of the head/neck, head stomps, small joint manipulation, and spiking takedowns. Soccer kicks to grounded opponents, initially permitted under PRIDE-inspired rules, were banned in 2016 due to reputational concerns.

Kickboxing and Muay Thai

Governed by Global Kickboxing/Muay Thai Rule Sets, glove sizes vary by weight (8-oz for ≤65.8kg in kickboxing; 4-oz for Muay Thai). Muay Thai permits elbows, clinches, sweeps, and throws. Matches are 3-5 rounds (3 minutes each). Wins occur via KO (including throws in Muay Thai), TKO (4 total/3 round knockdowns), decision, or disqualification. Judges use the 10-point must system, prioritizing knockdowns, damage, clean strikes, and aggression.

Submission grappling

Under the Global Submission Grappling Rule Set, matches are a single 10-minute round. Victories come via submission, verbal tapout, or referee/corner stoppage. Judges decide based on submission attempts ("catches"); aggression breaks ties. Yellow cards penalize stalling, restricting offenders to submission-only wins. Pre-May 2022, matches required submissions for victory, with draws after 12 minutes.

ONE Championship currently uses ten different weight classes:

ONE weigh-ins include a hydration test.

The change took place after the death of 21-year-old Chinese fighter, Yang Jian Bing (who was supposed to face Geje Eustaquio) on 11 December 2015, due to dehydration by weight-cutting in the Philippines.

The promotion banned weight-cutting by dehydration in order to promote fighter safety. The promotion's revised policy on weight mandated that athletes are monitored in their training camps, and have urine specific gravity tests to ensure they are hydrated up to three hours ahead of their bouts.

The new system was well received by athletes in the organization, as well as other stakeholders in the MMA industry.

However, in recent years, this system has been met with criticism after fighters failed hydration but then missed weight after making hydration, resulting in stripped titles and canceled fights.

ONE's event schedule is divided between several distinct series, including its flagship Numbered Series. The ONE Fight Night events are premium cards aimed particularly at the North American market and are distributed by Amazon Prime Video in the United States and Canada. The weekly Friday Fights series is held at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. The Inner Circle is a weekly, premium livestreamed event series. Road to ONE serves as a global recruitment league for developing talent. In 2026, ONE Championship launched ONE Samurai, a monthly PPV event series aimed at the Japanese market.

ONE Warrior Series

In November 2017, it was announced that ONE VP Rich Franklin would head up a competition called the ONE Warrior Series, searching for up-and-coming martial artists in Asia. The prize is a six-figure contract with the organization, with the winner determined based on their performance instead of victories. The most recent edition of the ONE Warrior series in its initial format was ONE Warrior Series 10, which aired on February 19, 2020.

ONE Warrior Series: Philippines

On September 12, 2022, ONE Warrior Series made a brief return as a reality television show titled ONE Warrior Series: Philippines. The show featured 16 mixed martial arts fighters in the Philippines competing for a $100,000 contract to compete in ONE Championship. Team Lakay members Joshua Pacio and Geje Eustaquio were featured on the show as coaches. The show premiered on September 18, 2022 and featured 12 episodes.

ONE Infinity

On 13 February 2020, ONE announced the launch of the "Infinity" series, events consisting of at least three championship fights and a minimum of 12 world champions.

ONE Lumpinee / ONE Friday Fights

In September 2022, ONE announced a partnership with the Royal Thai Army to hold at least 52 shows in 2023 at the Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. The weekly events started with ONE Friday Fights 1 on 20 January 2023, where Nong-O Gaiyanghadao successfully defended his bantamweight Muay Thai title with a TKO of Alaverdi Ramazanov in the third round. The event finished as the most-watched show in prime time in Thailand, with a 3.9 rating among males 15 years old and over, according to data collected by Nielsen. It was broadcast locally on Thailand's Channel 7. The event predominately features Muay Thai, but also includes MMA and kickboxing bouts. They are broadcast live in 154 countries, and reportedly offer the highest purses in Muay Thai history.

In May 2022, Sityodtong stated ONE Championship had 600 fighters in the organization.

Fighter salary

Fighter salaries in Asia are not publicly disclosed so information about ONE FC's fighter purses is not in the public domain. However, in January 2014 Ben Askren revealed that he was being paid a minimum of US$50,000 per fight as well as a US$50,000 win bonus. This was also the same amount Adriano Moraes made in his first fight against Demetrious Johnson. Following a legal dispute with his management team, Moraes signed a new contract that saw him making US$100,000 to show and US$100,000 to win, as well as a US$250,000 flat fee as champion and a US$10,000 monthly salary over two years.

Some fighter purses have been reportedly low as US$1,300 with a win bonus US$1,300, which was the amount received by Kyrgyzstani MMA fighter Anelya Toktogonova in her fight on ONE Friday Fights.

A cash bonus known as the "ONE Warrior bonus" was introduced on 9 July 2014 and implemented for the first time at ONE Fighting Championship: War of Dragons on 11 July 2014.

An award of US$50,000 is given out at the end of certain events to the fighter who impresses the most in terms of:"

• thrilling the fans with exciting action;
• demonstrating an incredible warrior spirit;
• exhibiting amazing skill, and;
• delivering a phenomenal finish.

The "ONE Warrior bonus" of $50,000 was re-introduced in January 2022, with a minimum of one bonus and a maximum of five bonuses awarded at each event.

The rankings for ONE Championship's fighters are both recorded and updated when information has been obtained from the official promotion website.

ONE Grand Prix Champions

Malaysia GP Champions

Cambodia GP Champions

China GP Champions

Myanmar GP Champions

In 2017, ONE entered into a partnership with World Lethwei Championship parties agreed on sending athletes to fight in each other's organization.

In January 2019, ONE entered into a partnership with Shooto, according to which Shooto champions would be given a contract with ONE Championship.

On February 18, 2021, ONE partnered with American promotion Ringside United Fighting (RUF Nation). The partnership saw RUF hosting a Road to ONE 16-man heavyweight MMA tournament, with the winner getting a $100,000 contract to compete in ONE Championship.

On November 19, 2023, ONE partnered with the UK-based Muay Thai promotion Hitman Fight League. The partnership will see Hitman Fight League host two Road to ONE four-man tournaments, with the winners receiving a £5,000 cash prize and the opportunity to compete on ONE Friday Fights at Lumpinee Stadium.

Former ONE Championship fighter Herbert Burns has alleged that the promotion shows favoritism to athletes signed to Evolve MMA, which was founded by ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong. After five straight victories, he claimed that it had been agreed that he would fight for the championship, but after leaving Evolve in September 2015, he was "punished" by being sidelined for next two years. Burns said he then accepted non-title fights without being 100 percent physically because he needed money after the time off.

Other former fighters have also expressed frustration with getting fights with ONE Championship. After parting ways with them in December 2023, former ONE Bantamweight Champion Bibiano Fernandes urged fighters to think twice about signing with the promotion. "I wasn't mad at them. Do I think they could have offered me more fights? One-hundred percent. I was out for three years basically and they could have offered me more fights." Fernandes went on to say, "I'm a mixed martial arts fighter but they're doing business. They only think about business, you know? What can I do?".

After leaving the company, former ONE two-division champion Reinier de Ridder also urged fighters not to sign with the promotion. "It's that simple. You should not. There's nothing there. There's no fights. You're just wrong if you do this, if you sign there, this is a bad mistake." After losing the light heavyweight title in December 2022, De Ridder did not fight for the entirety of 2023 before returning to defend the middleweight title in March 2024 in what was his last fight with ONE Championship. "It's been a bad couple of years. The stress I've been put through. The stress my family's been put through. To even just get fights, it hasn't been nice. It's hard for me to talk bad because I had a couple of good years at ONE as well. In the beginning, they treated me well. Over the past couple of years, it's been really bad."