Brandon Vera: ONE ready to take USA by storm

ONE Championship heavyweight champ Brandon Vera spoke recently with Simon Head for MMA Junkie about the promotion coming to America.

“You get to realize that what you do is bigger than the sport of martial arts, the sport of MMA, the sport of all of the martial arts coming together. It’s more than,” said Vera. “It’s you as a person, it’s you as an ambassador, it’s you as a good citizen of the world, promoting goodwill and helping everywhere that you can. Always showing and striving for the values - honor, discipline, and integrity.

“When you join a company that’s doing business this way, they’re doing meetings this way, they’re doing everything a certain way – by the martial arts code – it’s very easy for you as an athlete to come over and transition into this role that they want from you. They want you to become the most perfect martial artist that you can become, and they want you to become an ambassador for the world of goodwill.”

“When somebody is doing these kinds of things and not just ‘showing’ these kinds of things – like, I would say, ‘doing it for the ‘Gram, Facebooking it, TikTok-ing it’ – it’s not for show. It’s real.” 

“They take the world champions to every single high official meeting that they have and they let us mingle with everyone. And we hear the stories of sharing and caring and events they have put together, and it doesn’t end. So, for me, working at ONE Championship doesn’t even feel like a job.”

“From all of the organizations [Eddie Alvarez] went to all around the entire world that he held belts in, he came in and asked me, ‘Hey Brandon. Is this really real, or is this just like the honeymoon period?’ and I said, ‘No, man. Mr. Alvarez, it’s like this every single day. There is no honeymoon period.’ And then, when he started shaking his head and you start to understand that, wow, this is not a front. Nobody’s pretending. Everyone wants everyone else to succeed and help promote health throughout the world, and goodwill. I keep saying goodwill, because everyone has their own version of goodwill and helping. ONE Championship just wants you to shine in your own way and help the world as you can. And they’ll show you showing out for the world.

“It doesn’t makes sense, compared to all the other organizations. It’s not normal!”

“I think ONE Championship would honestly take America by storm. They were almost ready for Pride. They were almost ready for that the Bushido code. They were almost ready back then. Then it fell apart. Life happens, things happen.

“What ONE Championship is offering now is what PRIDE had, with six turbos on it and nitrous ready to kick in. I think the US of A would love this product and absolutely adore it as soon as it hit the stands. Because the American culture is ‘doing it for the ‘Gram, doing it for Facebooking, TikTok-ing.’ If we can bring this product to the US as soon as possible to compete with all the other brands, and you can see that this is as real and as true martial arts from their home life to the middle of the ‘circle’. And no bad press, you have real heroes who never get in trouble and don’t do things wrong and try to stay by the book. I think America would eat it up, especially at this time right now.

“People are looking for a guiding light. Something that’s shining that’s not fake or a front. It’s not a sideshow. It’s really real, so I think an American crowd, especially right now, could use this in our lives. It’s something that, man, the universe is drawing us to it. It’s time.”

“I can tell you that at least 70%, 80% of all athletes have been calling, emailing, texting, Facebooking, DM-ing, IG-ing, PM-ing, trying to get on the ONE Championship roster one way or another. And I’m talking about guys from other organizations. Guys from Top 10 in different weight ready to move on. So I think as soon as ONE Championship kicks the doors down and does a show in the US, the floodgates will open.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW_SjPJTKao

Vera also shared one of his remaining goals - “to fight in Madison Square Garden in New York, if we get to go to the United States.” 

They do put on a great show, and on a personal note, not having to fly 17 hours away would be nice 

Being in One is like doing CrossFit.

First rule of being in One is talking about how well they represent martial arts

One is great. Nice folks good show.   That said they will take over the US market right around the time Vera is the LHW and HW champion of the UFC. 

danybayamon23 -

Being in One is like doing CrossFit.

First rule of being in One is talking about how well they represent martial arts

I like how everyone brings up Pride and the martial arts way. They completely ignore that it was run by Yakuza the same way the UFC had mafia ties.

One is cool but their fights are on at like 6am on a Friday while I'm at work and don't think I can name 10 fighters on the whole roster.

No one is taking anything by storm unless there is cross-promotion involved, imo.

They have 0 US representation!  Most UFC fans don't remmber or even care about Might Mouse......And Sage is joke.  

They need to grab many free agents to even try and make a run.

They have maybe 2 Heavyweights....

deezlemike -

One is cool but their fights are on at like 6am on a Friday while I'm at work and don't think I can name 10 fighters on the whole roster.

Sadly, this. Its hard to follow and get engaged.