By ONE Championship, held up by many MMA fans as the antidote to the Ultimate Fighting Championship and its callous, profit-driven president Dana White, has once again shown it knows how to treat its fighters right by offering a whopping $1,300 to show plus $1,300 more to win, just for competing for a mixed martial arts fight in one of the world’s largest promotions. That’s nearly as much as Dana White’s Power Slap paid for opening round bouts, and that’s one of the most successful and widely enjoyed new sports in the whole world.
Led by Chatri Sityodtong, a big media presence with an army of loyal followers who trash anyone who speaks ill of him, ONE Championship continues to show that is is everything good about the sport that the UFC could never be. The revelation serves as yet another important reminder that there’s nothing systemic about the UFC’s problematic behavior toward fighters, and that there are other better organizations that bring in tens-of-millions of dollars annually in broadcasting and streaming partnerships while filling out the video libraries those deals require in a completely fair and ethical way.
