ONEFC
After months of waiting, ONEFC finally arrived and held their inaugural show yesterday September 3rd in Singapore. It was broadcast to 500 million homes in Asia but unfortunately did not seem to be available here in Pakistan. For the MMA fans of this country the only way to watch it was via live stream on the MMA news website Sherdog (www.sherdog.com).
ONEFC had been pushing this event through MMA outlets hard and had built up a lot of hype behind them. The reviews on forums after the end were mixed. Some people thought that considering the hype the show under delivered while others thought that the event was a shining success as a first show for an upstart promotion. I tend the agree with the latter opinion. Now, I can’t say for myself what the thoughts of the millions watching in Asia were but I was excited about this event not as a top notch MMA production with the worlds best fighters, but the first MMA production that was serious about growing and putting on top quality shows that would bring together the all the different MMA camps of Asia.
Watching the event was like watching a fight here in which I had a very emotional stake in a lot of the fights. I had trained at a lot of the camps that were fighting on the card and/or I knew the coach or someone who was friends with the fighter etc. About a good 25% of the people involved in the show, including the fights and the promotion were somehow connected to my social network, so I may very well be biased.
Now on to the show itself. The under card was in my opinion more entertaining than the main card. That’s for a number of reasons. There were a lot more finishes in the under card due to inexperience of the fighters and some apparent mismatches. I was also observing the fights more closely since the guys on the under card were more of my level, skill and experience wise. If I were ever fighting it would mostly be guys like them.
The top fights in the main card were those featured the two Phillipino fighters, Edward “Landslide” Folayang and Eric Kelly. Both fighters showed amazing heart and good technical skill combined with hard striking power. Both fighters won their fights, “Landslide” by decision and Kelly by submission. These two are definitely going to be staples of ONEFC in the coming future.
Great show and hope to put out some more updates in the future with the latest news about this promotion.
ONEFC was a great event to watch. The cage was circular so we can’t call it an ‘octagon’ 😛 Anyway, some of the fighters were unbelievable. And by unbelievable i mean, i couldn’t believe my eyes that such noobs are allowed to enter an up and coming big promotion. The name that i can never forget is Tiger Team India’s Susowan Ghosh.I mean GOSH!!!! Why the hell did his coach and manager put him up in the first place? and how in the hell did ONEFC clear him for the fight? The guys has a huge heart, but that sort of thing NOT fused with proper training will only get you killed. The best example; Sammy Vasquez.(He died in a low level promotion fight. He fought despite being warned by his doctor.) Coming to the point, Radeem Rahman beat the holy daylights outta Ghosh. To be honest, i was sitting on my chair with my fists clenching. Partly because Ghosh was getting beaten up and partly because we here in Pakistan have much much better MMA fighters than the likes of Ghosh. My question is, what the hell are we waiting for?
we are waiting for training and sponsers
It was downright criminal to send a noob like Ghosh to the slaughter so callously. His gym was pimping him as a “brown belt in shitoryu karate , a black belt in web designing and a red belt in computer geekness [sic]”. How could anyone in their right mind send a little lamb like that to a professional MMA fight? Half the fighters in the videos on your page could’ve taken him down with one arm tied behind their back.