ONE Championship News

Tom Taylor - October 29, 2018

Former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is now a ONE Championship athlete. That means that he can look forward to MMA bouts with top ONE Championship flyweights such as Geje Eustaquio, Adriano Moraes, Kairat Akhmetov and Danny Kingad, and perhaps even scraps with top ONE bantamweights down the road. Of course, that is not where Demetrious Johnson’s options as a ONE Championship athlete end.

BJPENN.COM Staff - October 29, 2018

ONE Championship’s Singapore events always seem to produce something special. It could be because Singapore is where the promotion started on its journey to becoming one of the world’s largest martial arts organizations back in 2011, or perhaps it’s the always enthusiastic Singaporean crowd that spur the athletes on to reach new heights.

Tom Taylor - October 29, 2018

These days, it seems like trash talk is part of the buildup to almost every major UFC fight. Pre-fight press conferences, media conference calls and interviews are increasingly filled with virulent mudslinging, while incidents like Conor McGregor‘s infamous bus rampage and the UFC 229 post-fight brawl seem to be making headlines with greater frequency. For fighters who aren’t fond of this kind of drama, this can be a little problematic.

Tom Taylor - October 28, 2018

Former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson is now a ONE Championship fighter. That’s thanks to a historic and unprecedented trade between ONE and the UFC, which saw Johnson shipped to the Singapore-based promotion, and former ONE welterweight champ Ben Askren sent stateside to the UFC. Ever since news of this trade was announced, Ben Askren has engaged in verbal warfare with many of the UFC’s top welterweights. And while ONE Championship encourages its fighters to steer clear of this kind of trash talking, one ONE Championship star has done his part to lock down a fight with the former UFC champ Demetrious Johnson: former ONE flyweight champ Kairat Akhmetov.

BJPENN.COM Staff - October 26, 2018

Former two-weight ONE world champion Martin Nguyen has thrown down the challenge to Eddie Alvarez, declaring he will put his ONE Featherweight World Title on the line. As Alvarez made the game-changing move to ONE Championship — having been offered a lucrative deal by ONE Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong — Australian Nguyen was quick to raise his hand.

Tom Taylor - October 25, 2018

At long last, ONE Championship heavyweight kingpin Brandon Vera is once again set to defend his title. The Filipino-American striking specialist will do so on November 23 in Manila, The Philippines, where he will battle Italy’s Mauro “The Hammer” Cerilli. This news was first reported by MMA-Today’s Al Zullino, and subsequently announced by the promotion. 

BJPENN.COM Staff - October 25, 2018

Every current titleholder with ONE Championship has had to battle their way to the top. Some are young and undefeated, others are seasoned martial artists who hit their strides later in their careers.  Today, we look at each of their careers and identified the signature victory in their ONE Championship journey.

BJPENN.COM Staff - October 25, 2018

“The Underground King” Eddie Alvarez, the most recent signing by ONE Championship, comes to the promotion with an impressive resume. The 34-year-old has competed in various countries and for a number of organizations. In each of his stops, Alvarez has reached the pinnacle.

Tom Taylor - October 24, 2018

On Wednesday afternoon, ESPN reported that the UFC and Singapore’s ONE Championship are closing in on a history-making fighter trade. This potential trade, which is still not official, would see ONE Championship send its former welterweight champion Ben Askren to the UFC, and the UFC send its former flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson to the Singapore-based promotion. If this trade comes to fruition, the ramifications would be massive and far-reaching. It could conceivably usher in an unprecedented era of fighter trades — not just the kind of -talent-sharing that Bellator has done with Rizin and BAMMA, but legitimate promotion-to-promotion trading. This trade could also signal the end of the long-struggling UFC men’s flyweight division, as it’s hard to believe the UFC would part ways with Johnson — still widely considered the division’s best fighter — if it had any intention of keeping the division around.

Tom Taylor - October 24, 2018

ONE Championship and the UFC are close to finalizing a history-making fighter trade, per ESPN. This potential trade would see the UFC send former flyweight champion and pound-for-pound great Demetrious Johnson to the Singapore-based promotion in exchange for former ONE and Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren. While this trade is reportedly on the table, it is not official yet.

Tom Taylor - October 24, 2018

ONE heavyweight champion Brandon Vera has not defended his title since December of 2016, when he authored a devastating knockout of Japan’s Hideki Sekine. The reason for his long absence since then is not due to injury or illness, but to a budding film career in The Philippines. “It’s been my calculated choice,” Brandon Vera said of his layoff on episode 102 of BJPENN.COM Radio. “When I say calculated choice, I asked permission before I went away for so long, from everyone, so that I could shoot a movie in the Philippines. It was called BuyBust. It was a huge action film from The Philippines, shown all over the world. It was a really good project. Even if I had to do it all over again, I would. The time versus sacrifice, yeah, it was definitely worth it. It was an experience.”

BJPENN.COM Staff - October 24, 2018

Following an impressive performance against Brazilian arch-nemesis, Adriano Moraes to unify the ONE flyweight world titles this past June, Geje ‘Gravity’ Eustaquio puts his rivalry with the former champion behind him as he looks for more intriguing matchups in his nascent reign as the division’s kingpin. The thought of returning to action and defending the gold-plated strap jolts the competitive spirit of the 29-year-old Baguio City native.