ONE Championship to bring major MMA event to Dubai

ONE Welterweight World Champion Ben Askren will defend his title against Nikolay Aleksakhin. Courtesy of Physique TV

Asia's biggest mixed martial arts organisation is set to bring a major live event to Dubai later this year. ONE's director of PR, Loren Mack, told The National: "There's a long history of MMA in the UAE. We were here in 2014 with a world class show, and we have quite a few fighters that train and live in the UAE and come and fight in the ONE Championship.

“We’re looking at doing another Dubai event in the second half of this year and we’re looking around the region as well. We’ve been contacted by various companies, governments, sports ministries that want to have a ONE Championship in their city. MMA is huge out here. Audience-wise our last event sold out in 72 hours, so it’s a major market for us. We’re looking at November this year, hopefully.”

In the meantime, Physique TV continues its exclusive regional coverage of the ONE Championship, with the live broadcast of ONE Championship Global Rivals on April 15, complete with Arabic commentary for Middle East and North African viewers. Set to take place at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, the upcoming MMA event is headlined by incumbent ONE Welterweight World Champion Ben Askren, who will defend his title against Nikolay Aleksakhin.

Physique TV screens monthly live coverage of ONE’s live events, but for those who can’t wait that long for their MMA fix, Physique also screens a nightly show at midnight, Sunday-Thursday, MMA All Out in which Rio Altaie and Ali Mokdad offer comment, fight analysis and highlights.

Physique TV is available on the following platforms:

• Etisalat Elife channel 793

• Du channel 409

• My-HD

• Arabsat satellite

• Livestreaming on www.physique-tv.com/en/watch/