One Fighting Championship announced yesterday that it will be streamed live on Sherdog. This is amazing news because it means MMA fans all over the world will be able to watch the show live.

The presence of Gregor Gracie, Phil Baroni and Yoshiyuki Yoshida on the card pretty much guarantees that people are going to try and watch this, hopefully the stream will be up to scratch.

It’s also great news for the Asian and Asian based fighters because while people will be tuning in to see the big names they are also going to find out about top up and coming prospects like Eddie Ng, Leandro Issa, Eric Kelly and, of course, Eduard Folayang and Ole Laursen.

This is an amazing opportunity for Laursen and Folayang who basically have Yoshida vs Baroni as the warm up fight for their main event. It’s a clever move by One FC not putting any of the international stars in the main event because fighters all over Asia are going to look at Folayang and Laursen’s names at the top of the card and think ‘that’s where I want to be’.

Ever since the card was announced all the MMA fighters I have spoken to in Thailand have said how much they want to be fighting for this show and the Sherdog news makes it even more appealing because it means that Dana White and Jo Silva are both blatantly going to be watching live and making extensive notes.

Giving every single person the world an opportunity to watch your show for absolutely nothing is a great move because it guarantees massive exposure for sponsors and fighters. Ticket sales are reportedly good and I think One FC probably waited until they were totally sure the venue would sell out before announcing this news.

One FC have also been clever in that they have taken the best elements of the UFC, such as the cage and the 3×5 minute rounds, and combined it with the best elements of Pride, such as the soccer kicks and stomps. This will appeal to hardcore MMA fans with fond memories of Pride but by keeping the fights inside a cage and the rounds relatively short casual fans are far less likely to be put off than they might have been by the full Pride experience.

Dare are hosting their second event in September and a lot of fighters are already openly speculating as to whether this could provide a stepping board into One FC as both Daniel Mashamaite and Zorobabel Moreira Jnr who featured on the last Dare card will be in action in Singapore in September.

One FC could really provide a boost for the smaller regional shows such as Dare in Thailand, URCC in the Philippines and Legend FC in Hong Kong and give their fighters a real incentive to perform well in order to win a lucrative contract with One FC.

One thing is for sure, this is a great time to be a mixed martial artist in Asia.