Dubai: Victor Cui, the owner and CEO of the One Fighting Championship (One FC), wants to stage “four or five” events a year in the region beyond this Friday’s Dubai debut.
The Singaporean-based mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion, which boasts a 90 per cent market share of Asia and airs to an audience of over one billion, makes its UAE debut this Friday with three world title fights on a nine-bout card at Dubai World Trade Centre.
Canadian-born Filipino promoter Cui, 42, won’t be content with just one visit to the region, however.
“More than a start, this is us firmly planting our flag to develop this market and grow into more events a year,” he told Gulf News. “We’ve had great support from our partners – Dubai Tourism and Dubai Sports Council – and it makes perfect sense to come to Dubai multiple times a year. I’d like to hold four or five events a year in the GCC region.
“August 29 will be the biggest fight card One FC has ever put together. I would say it’s the biggest fight card in the sport in all of Asia for as long as I can remember. Look at the scale of our first-time event here; we’re not simply coming here to dip our toe in the water.
“We’re not like an Olympics or an Expo that comes along just once, we can come multiple times a year and each time we can showcase the city in a very different way.”
The three-year-old company will jump from holding 14 Asia-wide events in 2014 to 24 next year, with ten across China, but Cui said the Middle East is just as important an area for expansion.
“There’s huge potential for growth here. The UAE is home to over 200 jiu-jitsu black belts, which is one of the pillars of MMA, so interest in the sport is already quite strong. There are lots of gyms with large memberships and the number of corporations interested in sponsorship is unprecedented.
“It’s a very new sport but that’s why there’s so much opportunity. We’re a young company, but we are fortunate to be in the right region at the right time, in the right sport. And we deliver the type of event that makes new fans.
“We bring the excitement of Las Vegas to every city we go to, with the red carpet, pyrotechnics, light and sound show. The atmosphere is electrifying.”
Cui added that central to One FC’s success was their focus on developing grassroots talent in every city they go to.
“It’s not just a night of watching people fighting but a night of heroes being born. We’re delivering local heroes on a global scale to a standard of entertainment many wouldn’t have seen before.
“Over the past two decades, we’ve imported heroes from the West, but now we are coming into a period of economic growth where people are looking for their own heroes. When you think of MMA, you think of Asia, and unlike other sports the foundation is already there, so it will be much easier to develop a world champion from Asia in MMA than it will in F1 or tennis, for example, as the infrastructure just isn’t there.”
