ONE Championship chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong spoke at the 2022 SBJ World Congress of Sports in New York City last week, and he went into detail about the highs and lows that the Singapore-based organisation has faced over the last 11 years.
Today, ONE is one of the world's largest sports media platforms, airs in more than 150 countries, and has amassed a staggering fanbase across the globe.
However, it took time and effort to get to this level.
Chatri spoke of the arduous journey that led the promotion to becoming one of the most successful sports properties in the world, as well as the inspiration behind undertaking such a mission.
"I'm a lifelong martial artist. At first, I just wanted to share my greatest passion in life with the world. I was really that naive. I had no idea what it really took to build a sports property at the same time. I lived in the [United] States for 18 years for my education, and I had a career in Wall Street as well," Chatri said.
"Then I went back to Asia, and I saw that there are four billion people in Asia, half the world's population. And yet there's never been a global sports property out of Asia. So I thought 'It must be super easy to just unite four billion people around martial arts, which is Asia's greatest cultural treasure. It's going to be easy because I'm a martial artist. I know everything.'
"But the first three years I got my butt kicked and I failed. I found thousands of failures and thousands of rejections. Literally, no one wanted to be part of it. But you know, one thing led to another, and again, I pinch myself because it's been such a crazy ride."
Chatri then revealed what sets ONE Championship apart from other combat sports promotions, and he credited the organisation's emphasis on martial arts values as the key difference.
It appears that Chatri's years of training across a variety of combat sports have helped him develop and maintain the focused mind and thick skin needed to survive the world of promoting fights.
"What makes us different is that I'm the only CEO and founder of the three top global organisations in martial arts who's a lifelong martial artist who trains every day. Every day I go to training, like I am tonight. I'm going to train at Renzo's Gracie's, where I am a brown belt in jiu-jitsu. I've been a pro-Muay Thai fighter in the past as well," he said.
"I've been doing martial arts for 38 years. This is just something that I truly love. And so when I look at my journey as a lifelong martial artist, thousands of hours and decades spent [in martial arts], I've inherited integrity, humility, respect, courage, discipline, and compassion. Those are the most valuable things. I inherited an unbreakable warrior spirit to overcome adversity in life. This is just what martial arts teaches and what we [at ONE] espouse and we exemplify."