Kicking things off in Osaka early Saturday morning (US time) was RIZIN 19 which saw their lightweight Grand Prix get underway. Fans were also treated to phenomenal performances from the likes of Seo Hee Ham, Kai Asakura, and light heavyweight champion, Jiri Prochazka.

Later on in the day, ONE Championship was in Tokyo where they would be holding their 100th major event. Titled ONE: Century, the overall event was split into two big cards that featured four title bouts and three tournament finals in total.

Part 1 of the show was headlined by yet another thrilling pairing of champions in Angela Lee and Xiong JingNan. Unfortunately, the final sequence of the bout has been clouded by controversy.

After absorbing several punches from JingNan around the dwindling 3:20 mark of the fifth and final round, Lee would shoot in for a single leg takedown. Initially defended, Xiong would land some hammer fist punches while defending. Lee would end up releasing the leg and positioning her arm around JingNan’s back which quickly led to a successful suplex from the defending atomweight champion.

#AndStill ONE FC Atomweight
@AngelaLeeMMA (10-2)
def. Jing Nan
(5th Round Submission)-RNC

#ONECentury Part II
LIVE 9AM (GMT) on @FITETv#ONEChampionship #WeAreONE pic.twitter.com/p8nRnUxHzx

— Mikey Thomas (@MikeyThomas1991) October 13, 2019

From this point on, JingNan would find herself stuck under the working Lee who found a late rear-naked choke to force the tap with 10 seconds remaining. It was a truly great rematch and a great performance from Lee in what will surely end up as a classic trilogy.

However… Suplex takedowns in ONE Championship are an entirely illegal maneuver – or at least they used to be.

At ONE: Iron Will on March 24, 2018, Kritsada Kongsrichai would score what was initially a first-round TKO victory over Robin Catalan via slam and punches. That was until it was later overturned after the event due to the illegality of the slam Kongsrichai used.

ONE Founder Chatri Sityodtong released a statement on his Facebook following the overturning of Kongsrichai’s victory.

The statement, which has since been deleted, read as follows:

“After careful video review of the fight under multiple angles, it has been deemed that an illegal suplex was utilized. At ONE Championship, all variations of suplexes are illegal and any attempt or intent results in an automatic disqualification. Robin Catalan will now be awarded the victory, and his win bonus. It will also be ruled a loss via DQ for Kritsada Kongsrichai and his official fight record.”

Sityodtong also explained:

“As a fellow lifelong martial artist, I fully understand that no athlete wants to win or lose under the cloud of a DQ. However, as the leader of ONE Championship, I am here to ensure that safety is the #1 priority at all times for all of our athletes.”

Since Kongsrichai’s disqualification loss to Catalan, two more for the same reason have occurred in ONE Championship thus totaling out to three in the promotion’s eight-year history.

The second came in September 2018 when the current lightweight champion, Christian Lee, used one against Edward Kelly at ONE: Beyond the Horizon. The third and most recent disqualification came in June of this year when Hu Yong suplexed Huyixibai in the third-round of their three-round flyweight contest at ONE: Hero Series June.

Unlike the first disqualification of Kongsrichai, the last two were addressed on the spot and called disqualifications immediately by officials and the commentary teams.

“I really do feel like I was robbed of a victory and handed a loss that should never be on my record,” Christian Lee explained to The Body Lock.

“Instead of moving up to 10-2, it pushes me back to 9-3. It doesn’t really matter, but at the same time, it does in terms of my brand. People were thinking that I’m a dirty fighter, that I wanted to paralyze this guy. None of that is true. The fact is he landed on his shoulder, and his head hit as a result of him having nothing other than his shoulder posted on the mat.

“He [Edward Kelly] said in a pre-fight interview his goal was he wanted to finish me with the head kick knockout in the second round,” Lee continued. “Now I don’t see how putting your shin into another person’s head could possibly be any worse than getting dropped hard on a takedown. It’s a fight. These things happen, and you know going into it that there’s a potential for injury. And so I feel like, you know, it is what it is, it’s a fight.

“That’s why [the referee] let the fight continue until he was out from the punches. When the decision was made to disqualify me, it actually involved multiple other officials at ONE. So it wasn’t the referee’s fault. He stopped the fight, and he went to go check with the officials because whenever there is a slam finish in ONE they’re going to check it. And so they did and he came to me and he said, look like they’re saying that it’s illegal because of the fact that he hit his head on the mat and he apologized. He said, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing that I can do about it, I’m going to have to give you a red card.’”

When looking at all three suplexes plus the one in question from Angela Lee at ONE: Century, they do all have two common traits. The first and most obvious one being that they indeed were suplexes/slams – which Sityodtong announced as illegal following the first incident.

Secondly, they all saw the person getting slammed land on their heads… Specifically the backs of their heads/necks. Except in JingNan’s case as she landed more on the side of her head. In the Hu Yong fight, ONE commentator Mitch Chilson stated that suplexes onto the head, neck, or spine are illegal. This wasn’t mentioned during Lee vs JingNan 2 after the slam was landed but was addressed as the back of the head specifically being the illegal part of slams following the end of Part 1.

Along with that, ONE’s official programs for the event listed the following as the only illegal techniques. It also specified that “all takedowns are legal but must not result in spiking or pile driver to the head or neck.”

“I have not seen the replay or anything like that so I don’t know, did she land on her shoulder?” Sityodtong said at the post-fight press conference for ONE: Century Part 1 via South China Morning Post. “I don’t know if it was a full suplex or a side suplex. I have to review the footage or get the competition team to review the footage.”

Illegal techniques:

• Stomps/up-kicks/kicks to the head of a grounded opponent
• Head Butting
• Hair Pulling
• Eye Gouging
• Orifice Insertion
• Spitting
• Grabbing onto the cage fence

Also, this is the printed rules in the official programs from the event today #ONECentury pic.twitter.com/ANIP2iDSAn

— Amy Kaplan (@PhotoAmy33) October 13, 2019

As for Angela Lee’s comments, she told FanSided; “We pay very close attention to the rules of ONE Championship, and when I went for my takedown, I lifted her up and I threw her front side. So she would land on her face, not on the back of her head. I’m pretty sure that everything is on camera. And, you know, I’m looking to end the fight in a clean way. And I’m not going to be a dirty fighter and try to take advantage of any situation.”

Obviously, over time rules are bound to be changed for better or worse which appears to be the case in ONE Championship. The big problem is the lack of clarity – whether it should or shouldn’t be a rule is a different discussion. The fact is that it seems to still be a rule but ONE didn’t announce when the changes were made to the rule, therefore, leading to this continued confusion.

The Body Lock reached out to ONE Championship asking when the rule change was made from all suplexes being illegal to the seemingly current illegal variant and no comment has been received yet.

In their eight-year existence, this, of course, isn’t the only batch of disqualifications that have been seen in ONE Championship. Most commonly it has been your typical illegal strike that has either come to a grounded opponent via kick or punches/elbows to the back of the head, etc.

But in May following ONE: Enter the Dragon, an event that saw Petchmorrakot Petchyindee originally upset Giorgio Petrosyan by split decision, we got a different type of overturning. The bout was a kickboxing match.

“ONE Championship has conducted an official review of the controversial bout between Giorgio Petrosyan and Petchmorrakot Petchyindee at ONE: Enter The Dragon in Singapore,” Sityodtong posted on Facebook (via BJPenn.com). “In fairness to all parties, the ONE Competition Committee has formally declared the bout a no contest. The referee did not adequately control the illegal clinching, resulting in multiple infractions during the bout.

“There will be an automatic rematch with the winner proceeding into the semifinals of the US$1m ONE Featherweight Kickboxing World Grand Prix.”

Petrosyan, an Evolve MMA instructor alongside the gym’s founder in Sityodtong, would win the rematch against Petchyindee before winning the finals at ONE: Century this past weekend.

In regards to Angela Lee’s suplex and what will happen there, if anything, remains to be seen. At the very least a trilogy bout against the strawweight champion, Xiong JingNan, could be waiting in the wings as Lee and Sityodtong expressed their interest of it in the post-fight presser.

The post Assessing the ONE Championship suplex rule controversy appeared first on The Body Lock.

The first card is headlined by a champion vs. champion rematch between Angela Lee and Xiong Jing Nan for Lee’s ONE Women’s Atomweight World Championship, while the co-main event features the finals of ONE’s Flyweight Grand Prix with Demetrious Johnson taking on Danny Kingad. The second card will see another champion vs. champion main event bout when two-division ONE champion Aung La N Sang defends his light heavyweight title against the company’s heavyweight champion Brandon Vera, with the bantamweight title on the line in a co-main clash between Bibiano Fernandes and Kevin Belingon.

In the months following the announcement, ONE also revealed a new broadcast partner for the event. In early September, popular combat sports streaming platform FITE TV sent out a press release stating it had reached an agreement with the Asian MMA promotion to show both cards of ONE: Century on pay-per-view. The streaming service will have exclusive international distribution rights of the events outside of current deals set in place in the US, Asia, New Zealand, and the DACH region.

The broadcast deal set forth in the United States is of particular note, however, when it comes to ONE’s historic event. Up until this point, stateside viewers have had the ability to download the ONE Championship app and, after registering an account with B/R Live, watch ONE events for free. ONE: Century, however, will be shown on across two different platforms in the US: the first card will be shown live on TNT, while ONE Century: Part 2 will be broadcast via B/R Live, which has a monthly subscription price of $9.99 per month.

You read that right; the promotion has finally decided to move its content behind a paywall for its North American viewers. The Body Lock has confirmed with ONE Championship that neither of the ONE: Century events will be available via the promotion’s app.

The move isn’t entirely unexpected. Ever since ONE partnered with Turner and its subsidiary at the beginning of 2019, pundits have speculated that the Singapore-based MMA organization’s content would be packaged with other Turner Sports offerings behind B/R Live’s subscription service. Given the stacked lineup of both cards (although Eddie Alvarez is no longer featured) its not surprising that the parties involved decided to pull the trigger at this time.

How North American fans will respond to the change is an entirely different question. ONE: Century Part 1 will be broadcast live on TNT during primetime television in the United States at 8 pm EST and will go head to head against UFC Fight Night 161, which is headlined by a pivotal strawweight bout between Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Michelle Waterson. Although ONE will most likely capture the unknown subset of MMA fans that haven’t cut the cable cord but don’t subscribe to ESPN+, that number is probably relatively small, and if fans are forced to choose between watching between the two events the UFC will have much stronger name value for an American audience.

For ONE: Century Part 2, the event will be available to stream live through the B/R Live app, but starts at the daunting hour of 4 am EST. Although fans will have the option to watch the replay on demand if they don’t want to get up that early, avoiding spoilers in route to re-watching fights can be a hassle depending on how the app is set up. What’s more, it doesn’t exactly entice American consumers to pony up the $9.99 per month for the first time on an event that isn’t during a convenient timeslot, especially with illegal streaming sites usually having access to such content the day after it airs.

All that being said, there probably isn’t a better time to make the switch. MMA fans have already proven that they’re willing to pay a fair amount for content, and hardcore ONE Championship fans in the US will most likely pay for the subscription to B/R Live. Airing the first card on TNT also has the potential to create new/convert casual fans with little exposure to MMA, as the network has little sports content aside from NBA basketball. Even if that number is small, it’s very possible that ONE has realized it may have more success attracting new or casual consumers with little exposure to the sport rather than getting existing MMA fans to pay more on top of their current subscription plans.

ONE also needs to find ways to raise revenue as it continues its push into the North American market. As exposed last year in a report by John S. Nash, the promotion’s finances don’t appear to be in the best shape with accumulating losses reaching over $92.5 million. While the organization has continued to raise capital despite mounting losses, venture capitalist firms have taken a beating in the past year over betting on Unicorn IPOs and there could be increased concern from potential investors over ONE’s financials moving forward.

Either way, come October 13 we’ll have some objective data regarding ONE Championship’s viewership claims and whether or not the change is a success. The first part of ONE: Century will report ratings because its broadcast on network television, and if the numbers are good, we can expect B/R Live to announce an increase in subscriptions after the second card has aired. For ONE there isn’t much downside to going behind the paywall, but in terms of it actually being worthwhile to the promotion from a financial and growth standpoint, only time will tell.

The post ONE Century will be behind a paywall in the US: Is it the right call? appeared first on The Body Lock.

Those are the words of ONE Championship Chairman and CEO, Chatri Sityodong, in a Facebook post published early Saturday morning discussing ONE Elite Agency (OEA), an invitation-only sports agency tied to the promotion that launched in November of last year. The post prefaced an announcement made on April 29 that the company was increasing the requirements to become a certified agent, manager, or advisor that works with fighters under the ONE Championship banner.

Some of the requirements include a mandatory one-year residency in Asia, a college or university degree, and ten years of mixed martial arts industry experience, though it is unspecified as to what that experience can be. There is particular concern among many regarding the residency requirement, with one manager who failed to satisfy the condition reaching out to The Body Lock asking, “So, I cannot offer them anymore to One FC?”

“Requiring an Agent to live in Asia for a year is absurd. No other Professional Sports league in the world requires that,” tweeted prominent MMA manager and NFLPA certified agent Jason House of the requirements. “Requiring an agent to have lived in Asia for a year discriminates against most of the agents across the world. If One wants American fighters, they are going to have to deal with American groups.”

It’s hard to argue that the move doesn’t create a clear conflict of interest for the Singapore-based mixed martial arts promotion. Along with the ability to deny or revoke an agent’s accreditation arbitrarily, only ONE certified agents will be allowed to work with the company’s athletes moving forward. Considering the aforementioned Sityodtong Facebook post regarding the creation of the OEA, it certainly appears like ONE is trying to push fighters into management options that play to the organization’s favor, including itself.

“The biggest competitive advantage for OEA is that it has the full backing of ONE Championship resources, connections, and IP around the world to build global heroes and to help secure opportunities for our athletes,” Sityodtong states in the post. “Whether it is financial opportunities, big fights, marketing dollars, social media content, media coverage, government relations, business connections, retirement packages, or everything else, OEA works with all of the key departments of ONE Championship to drive the biggest opportunities in and out of the circle for OEA athletes.”

With the unlimited access and solidarity OEA has with ONE, OEA can emerge as a dominant force to rival any independent managerial firm. And as an extension of ONE Championship, ONE can effectively cut out the middleman when it comes to negotiating OEA-managed fighters’ contracts.

The decision to only let certified agents work with its athletes may stifle any expansion ONE had planned in international markets as well. Many current managers, agents, and advisors that are well-established in the sport do not meet ONE’s certification requirements, and while the company has successfully recruited notable names from other companies during recent free agency periods, it will be much harder to do moving forward. Without known stars to help raise ONE’s profile as they enter these markets, success will be anything but assured.

While the ethics and business impact surrounding the announcements are certainly an issue, ultimately, they play a critical part in the promotion’s long-term goal: All of its assets, including athletes, under a single umbrella that it can exclusively and wholly control.

Looking at ONE’s recent business decisions, the pattern isn’t hard to see. Just last week Sityodtong announced the launch of ONE Studios, a film and television production division of ONE Championship that has already started filming. ONE eSports, a competitive esports series hosted by the organization that launched around the same time as OEA, is planning multiple events with former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson as its chief brand ambassador. The company even partnered with fashion e-commerce platform Zilingo to create an athleisure business, selling athletic gear and apparel as well as “urban lifestyle streetwear in line with the latest trends.”

That’s the endgame—building a brand through vertical and horizontal integration that encompasses the entirety of – and transcends – mixed martial arts.

It’s a similar idea to what World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) currently has in place. While professional wrestling is their bread and butter, the WWE has an ownership interest in the Tapout clothing brand, a music label, and a film production company, WWE Studios. The products that come from each of these companies all revolve around the “WWE Universe”, with wrestlers often having a lead role in films, and Tapout regularly producing custom WWE fan apparel.

This type of strategy focuses less on attracting new customers and more on leveraging from the existing consumer base. Instead of attempting a new service/product that may or may not attract the new, casual viewer, a business can sell more of a brand that it knows already resonates with a die-hard following. While the amount of potential revenue that can be generated this way is lower than if a group of new customers began to buy the product, it comes with considerably less risk.

ONE has stated that it will make an exception to their new certification rules, including the Asian residency requirement, on a case-by-case basis, opening the door for some of the bigger names in the industry to still work with the organization. Although the company’s financials are concerning, the promotion shows no signs of slowing down its diversification in its product mix, trying to build its own ONE universe, where its fighters will be seen as more than just men and women in the cage.

As Sityodong’s opening quote of this article stated, ONE is trying to build real-life superheroes, not just sell fights. While we wait and see if the company can successfully pull that off, they’ve at least already revealed who will play the villain.

The post ONE Championship and the quest to build a total entertainment empire appeared first on The Body Lock.

ONE Championship, one of Asia’s largest martial arts organizations, has long maintained an environment free of drug testing.

In fact, ONE Championship’s founder and CEO, Chatri Sityodong, provided The Straits Times with an illuminating perspective to that effect in September 2016:

“Chatri said ONE does not carry out doping controls, but he insisted the culture of respect in martial arts – and the poor economic backgrounds of many fighters – meant drug-cheating was unlikely.”

Recently, however, a report by Asian MMA’s James Goyder surfaced that ONE Championship would be implementing World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) standard drug testing in 2019, though there was no specification as to what that would mean in practice.

It is unknown if the ONE Championship drug testing was to be done through WADA, in adherence to their guidelines, or conducted at WADA labs.

Also read: WADA distances itself from ONE Championship claims

The World Anti-Doping Agency is a globally recognized authority on anti-doping in sports, having been founded in 1999 by the International Olympic Commission. Per WADA’s website, its key tenets are [World Anti-Doping] code compliance monitoring, anti-doping coordination, global anti-doping development, and athlete outreach, along with providing educational, scientific, and medical information.

Sityodtong spoke about the relationship between ONE and WADA at a recent press conference.

“It is true that we began doing WADA testing actually last year,” Sityodong told those in attendance, promising that more details were coming soon in the form of future announcements.

However, two high-profile ONE Championship stars seem to have no knowledge of any testing to have happened in the past, with one still unaware of any plans for WADA testing in 2019.

ONE featherweight champion and former lightweight champion, Martin Nguyen, told The Body Lock, “I always thought it was mandatory to at least test for any anabolics, testosterone, TRT – just standard testing – in ONE Championship, until I found out that they really don’t test at all.”

Jiu-jitsu star and undefeated ONE MMA prospect, Garry Tonon, didn’t even think to believe the initial ONE/WADA report. In an interview with The Body Lock on January 15, Tonon said, “First of all, I don’t think it’s true.”

Despite Sityodtong’s announcement, Tonon still has yet to hear anything from the promotion. Tonon recently confirmed that he ‘still hasn’t seen anything’ other than the aforementioned tweet by Goyder and several forum posts based on that tweet.

Also read: ONE Championship threatens UFC veteran Will Chope with lawsuit over alleged defamation

Although it is possible that ONE Championship is planning to implement WADA standard drug testing in the near future, Nguyen and Tonon have yet to be informed of any changes.

Nguyen is in favor of the testing, saying, “I think it’s a good thing. I think this is where ONE Championship is evolving. It’s one step onto the next.”

Tonon, however, isn’t as enthusiastic. “If they implement [WADA standard testing], will it help to some degree? Yes? No? But here’s my general stance on it: I don’t care one way or the other, ’cause I haven’t been using PEDs – ever – in my entire career… There are plenty of people beating these drug tests. So, ultimately, what it comes down to is; the way that it will really impact the sport is: the guys that can’t afford to pay for a doctor that knows how to beat the drug test, those guys will no longer be able to use PEDs or will get caught.”

Nguyen shares Tonon’s sentiment as to the likelihood of seeing people fail drug tests. “We’ll see who busts. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of bodies change now that ONE Championship has announced that. Everyone is probably still going to be on it and hoping that they don’t get tested,” he said.

Both Nguyen’s and Tonon’s suspicions were realized, according to Sityodtong.

At the aforementioned press conference, Sityodtong also touted what he claimed to be “good news” about the early results.

“Good news is: last year we did a lot of tests, and 95-97% of our athletes came out clean,” he said. Of course, that would mean between three and five percent of sampled ONE Championship athletes failed the WADA testing. It is unknown what, if anything, ONE Championship decided to do regarding the 3-5% of fighters who tested positive for PEDs.

At this point, it seems as though little is known about the nature of the relationship between ONE Championship and WADA, and little is known about what ONE Championship’s drug testing policy will be.

Hopefully, Sityodtong and ONE Championship follow through with their promise to provide more details regarding drug testing in the coming days and weeks.

The post ONE Championship claims drug testing to commence in 2019 through WADA appeared first on The Body Lock.