Shouts to @basedmegaton for putting me on to this batshit insane Chatri Sityodtong interview where he jumps through hoops to try to justify ONE not doing any drug testing. He was in prime promoter mode for this one. There is so much wrong with everything here.
gonna keep happening until asia gets some actual mma governing bodies
I’d care less if he just said “those aren’t the rules here” or “we can’t afford testing dudes from 20 different countries”.
Chatri basically admitted his fighters are paid shit and being exploited. Also dumped on the rest of the world while making up some BS about Asian fight camps.
i mean, i don’t think it’s ever been a question. there’s no way they’re paying good money for regional level guys from pakistan or malaysia.
But “they’re gonna be worth a billion dollars in 12 months”. Just not something I ever expected to hear a promoter say.
Chatri has always been full of shit. I don’t care if you test or not but yeah, he basically either admitted that ONE contracts pay shit or he thinks people are dumb enough to believe that most of their fighters who are able to afford living in one of the most expensive cities in the world can’t afford PEDs which cost as much as groceries.
ONE is just sketchy all over, even by fight business standards. It’s not even just the random Pakistanis or Malaysians that they under pay, they caused Sapo to go broke right before the second scheduled Askren fight by feeding him straight up lies about when the fight was scheduled (there was a whole circus around that, ONE did him very dirty). They developed an entire rigged weight cutting/hydration system that they let certain fighters slide on and used it as a method to take media heat off of their backs regarding a fighter dying in their promotion. The list goes on and on.
I like their events and a lot of the fighters but ONE as a promotion is a shit show that will probably be gone before too long. They failed badly to break into China, are pretty much stuck in Southeast Asia, the government is coming down on them (pretty much forced them to ban soccer kicks), and they recently received a large “investment” (had to be bailed out basically). Not a chance they reach a billion dollar worth.
