ONE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP CEO Chatri Sityodtong has made a very bold statement saying that their heavyweight fighters will easily defeat the UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. ONE Championship is arguably the second-best MMA promotion at the moment in the world after the UFC. The MMA media all over the world has appreciated the work of ONE Championship and even UFC commentator and MMA enthusiast Joe Rogan has stated that ONE Championship functions better than UFC and has a better weight cutting process compared to any other lead MMA promotion.
Now ONE Championship’s CEO Chatri Sityodtong has stated that they got better fighters than the UFC. He specifically targeted the UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.
“I like Francis Ngannou but I think our heavyweights would smoke him,” Chatri Sityodtong told a media scrum backstage at Singapore Indoor Stadium when asked if he would be interested in signing “The Predator”.
“He’s just not a complete fighter. For sure, if you ask any expert martial artist, you look at [ONE interim heavyweight champ] Anatoly Malykhin – Russian national pedigree wrestler, dynamite in his hands. Much faster than Francis, much better ground game, black-belt level” Chatri Sityodtong said.
“He was also a submission champion in Europe. You look at [ONE heavyweight champ] Arjan Bhullar, wrestling, boxing. Francis is not very impressive on the ground. He’s got big, looping punches, he’s not as technical of a boxer as Anatoly or even Arjan” Chatri Sityodtong said.
“We have a few other signings in the heavyweight division we haven’t announced yet that are just killers,” he said. “So I think this is year, the last several months especially, we have truly arrived in terms of our heavyweight division being neck and neck with the UFC’s.”
Chatri Sityodtong also talked about some places he would love to hold the ONE Championship events next.
But Chatri seemed to shoot the idea down. “No, we have events planned for outside Singapore, we just haven’t announced it yet,” he said.