Dubai: One Championship, the mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion formerly known as the One Fighting Championship, will make its return to Dubai in the final quarter of this year, according to chief executive officer Victor Cui.
The Singapore-based group, which is widely considered as Asia’s answer to America’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), made its UAE debut at Dubai World Trade Centre on August 29 last year.
Based on the success of that event, Cui told Gulf News that they were set for a bigger and better return in 2015.
“We have set a date, we just haven’t announced it yet,” Cui said on the set of One Championship’s regional broadcast partners Physique TV in Al Qusais here on Tuesday.
“It will be in the last quarter of this year and we’ll reveal all within the next month or so, we just need to get a couple more pieces in line.
“I love coming back to Dubai, it was a great event last time and a good start for us in the region. I think coming back here to do even more in the region is our priority.”
The Canada-born Filipino, who founded One Championship in 2011, also hinted at improvements to the Dubai event, which is one of 24 planned globally for 2015, beamed to an audience of more than one billion homes across 75 countries.
“We sold out a 7,000-seater stadium in Dubai last time, which is one of our smaller events considering we’ve just held a 20,000-seater event in Manila. But we wanted to make sure we delivered a world class experience and the venue was provided in partnership with Dubai Tourism, so it made sense for us to go there.
“This time we are looking at a venue double that size and there’s no shortage of great venues here in Dubai.”
Cui added One Championship’s return to the region made business sense.
“The fanbase is exploding here — I don’t think people realise how strong the MMA community is in the Middle East. You can see a rapid growth in gyms and the grass roots are proliferating.
“There are a lot of people who practice the sport and, thanks to an entire year of content broadcast throughout the region, our fanbase has grown exponentially as well. So it was a natural progression for us to come back to Dubai. It’s a fantastic city, a great host and we have great partnerships with Dubai Tourism and Physique TV, and all of that is a good enough reason to return.”
Cui added he would like to expand further into the Middle East region after having built a solid foundation in Dubai.
“We will continue to grow where our partners, sponsors and fans want us to go. We may be based in Singapore but One Championship is a global property and there is still plenty of room for us to grow.”
