What's happening with ONE Championship? Inside the promotion's uneasy MMA decline

MMA has drifted into uneasy territory inside ONE Championship. And its roster has felt the consequences. In March, a wave of releases hit ONE’s MMA ranks, with 11 fighters landing on the chopping block at the time of this publication.

Included among that group are notable names such as the promotion’s long-reigning 125-pound strawweight champion Xiong JingNan, and former MMA champions Adriano Moraes and Zebaztian Kadestam. In addition to Xiong, specifically, ONE also shut down the entire women’s strawweight division. This isn’t the first time ONE has been embroiled in controversy.

The Asia-based promotion was once on track to be a major player in the global MMA landscape, breaking new ground with a cross-promotional deal with aspirations to go shoulder-to-shoulder with the UFC. Now, according to some of its former athletes, ONE's MMA roster may as well be a graveyard. "It was basically the inactivity,” former middleweight champion Kadestam told Uncrowned.

“I'd been with them for a long time, since 2017. I had a few fights, but in the last three years, I barely fought. I'm not getting any younger.