In his recent interview with The MMA Hour ONE Championship CEO, Chatri Sityodtong admitted that his open to fighting UFC boss Dana White. The whole situation started with ONE Championship putting a post saying ‘Who wants to see Chatri vs Dana’ with footage of Sityodtong training.
ONE CEO responded to a post with a ‘send me location’ message. According to him, he was ironic with the whole thing, but when asked about his thoughts on how White conducts his business and deals with UFC fighters he didn’t hold back and claimed that White knows nothing about Mixed Martial Arts.
Sityodtong said that White is an outstanding businessman, but he doesn’t agree with his way of doing things, even despite building UFC into a company of phenomenal proportions. ONE CEO stated, that UFC boss doesn’t know anything about martial arts or fighting and is only a fan of the sport. On the other hand, Sityodtong has a martial arts background, which results in different treatment of his promotion’s fighters, whom he considers his peers.
White, 52, has been the driving force behind UFC growth since 2001. He’s a polarizing figure who gathers both acclaim and criticism due to his public persona.
ONE CEO isn’t campaigning for a fight with White, but if the opportunity would present itself, he most definitely would welcome it.
Sityodtong said that as a lifelong martial artist he has 35 years of training in Muay Thai and is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt. He trains five, six times a week with one or two hours sessions every day. What’s more, he was approached by his marketing department about competing inside the cage, but according to him, no right scenario has appeared.
One of the main topics was fighter pay, which is often talked about when it comes to UFC. Sityodtong considers his own negotiations to be fairer than his American counterpart.
He stated that his athletes don’t complain, and 95% of them have good relations with the promotion. As anywhere else there will be a few of those, who don’t feel happy, but they’re in minority. Is it Muay Thai, MMA, kickboxing, or submission grappling, ONE Championship is making sure that they pay their athletes handsomely. That’s why many of the world’s best athletes decided to join the promotion. Sityodtong stated that promotion’s relations with its fighters are symbiotic and if they deliver the value they will get paid better.
