Nate Diaz has no interest in fighting Dustin Poirier at lightweight.

Nate Diaz has no interest in returning to the UFC at 155 pounds, declaring himself a welterweight in a recent post on social media.

“[Nick Diaz Army] soldier 170 pounds,” Diaz wrote on Tuesday. “Come get you some of the real.”

The former UFC lightweight title challenger and fan favorite then followed up with a Tweet aimed at Dustin Poirier, urging ‘The Diamond’ to jump up a weight class to settle their long-running feud outside the cage.

“These are fighting words tho. So f-ck a weight class,” Diaz posted in response to Poirier, who is seemingly open to a grudge match with The Ultimate Fighter 5 winner at 170 pounds.

“Does it make sense in the lightweight division? No,” Poirier told ESPN’s Marc Raimondi in a recent interview. “Does it make sense standing in the door front of a title shot? No. But it’s a fun fight and this is entertainment and this is fighting.”

Poirier is fresh off a stunning second-round KO victory over Conor McGregor at UFC 257 while Diaz is looking to rebound from his ‘BMF’ title loss to Jorge Masvidal at UFC 244 that saw Diaz busted up and finished in the third round due to doctor stoppage.

Diaz and Poirier were originally scheduled to face off in a lightweight tilt back in 2018 but the latter was forced to withdraw from the bout due to injury. Poirier — the No. 1-ranked lightweight in the world — has never fought at welterweight while Diaz is 3-3 with wins over Conor McGregor, Rory Markham, and Marcus Davis.

The hits just keep on coming.

The UFC Vegas 18 matchup between Marion Reneau and Macy Chiasson has been scratched from this weekend’s lineup after “The Belizean Bruiser” tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to withdraw, postponing their bantamweight showdown to Feb. 27.

Reneau made the announcement on Instagram.

“The fight between Macy Chiasson and I has been cancelled for THIS weekend,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, I tested positive for COVID. I am feeling 100% fine with no symptoms. Macy and I have agreed to run it back on FEBRUARY 27! I appreciate Macy and her camp for being professional and willing to make this fight happen. Thank you for all the support leading up to this fight. Postponed…NOT CANCELLED! The goal doesn’t change! Just the date!”

UFC has yet to make an official announcement.

Reneau (9-6-1), who turns 44 in June, could be fighting for her job after dropping three straight fights. Her last Octagon appearance ended in a unanimous decision loss to Raquel Pennington at UFC on ESPN 11 back in June 2020.

UFC Vegas 18 previously lost the main card matchup between bantamweight bruisers Cody Stamann and Andre Ewell. To see all the latest changes to this weekend’s “Overeem vs. Volkov” fight card click here.

While ONE Championship continues to talk of massive viewership, their financial statements continue to show massive losses.

For the last few years I have been tracking ONE Championships finances, posting summaries of their annual filing with the Singapore Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA.) These previous financial statements showed a company that was losing tens of millions a year while also managing to raise hundreds of millions from institutional investors. (You can see those below.)

Note: ONE Championship is the trade name for Group One Holdings PTE LTD, a private company limited by shares that is registered in Singapore. The filed statements often include amounts for both “the Company” and “the Group.” “The Company” is Group One Holdings (ONE Championship), while the “the Group” is the Company and its subsidiaries, collectively. I will use ONE when referring to either entity. For the sake of simplicity I will also be using the amounts given for the Group instead of differentiating them from the those of the Company, which was responsible for 94% of the Group’s revenues in 2019.

Since ONE uses Singapore dollars (S$) in their financial statement, I will give amounts in the same currency, identifying United States dollars (US$) when used. The current exchange rate for 1 Singapore dollar is 0.75 US dollar (or 1 US dollar is worth 1.33 Singapore dollars.)

The discrepancy between their performance and investors’ faith in the venture is hard to explain using only their financial statements. Instead it seems dependent on the metrics that ONE touts, and faith that these can eventually be monetized. As ONE Championship’s founder and CEO, Chatri Sityodtong, explained in an interview last December:

Five years ago we were at 150,000 views for the whole year. This year organic – not paid, organic – is gonna cross six billion…

…as long as all the most important health metrics grow it’s an inevitability that broadcasters will pay billions of dollars for ONE championship content. It’s an inevitability that brands who want to pay billions of dollars to be associated with one championship.

How “organic” these numbers are have been questioned by others, and it’s hard to confirm with these various clicks, views, and ratings not being available to the public. While their claims may end up being true and that financial success is somehow inevitable, their ACRA financial statements so far tell a different story.

ONE saw record revenues in 2019, generating S$62 million for the year, a 67% increase from the previous year’s S$37 million in revenue. They also also reported a loss of S$130 million. This is a 60% increase from 2018, when they lost S$83 million.

For every year that we have statements for, ONE has seen both their revenues and losses grow. During this time we have repeatedly heard bold proclamations of ONE’s coming success. These have yet to materialize.

In 2017, Chatri Sityodtong told the Financial Time the company was “very, very close to profitability.” Losses that year were S$34 million, and would grow to S$83 million in 2018 and S$130 million in 2019.

In May, 2018 it was reported in Variety in May, that “annual revenues of $100 million are imminent.” They have yet to achieve these numbers as total revenues for the Company in 2018 was S$37 million, growing to S$62 million in 2019.

In 2019, Sityodtong told Business Insider that in the UFC and ONE Championship were a global duopoly in the world of combat sports. According to him, “UFC controls an 80% market share of the western hemisphere, but ONE Championship controls 90% of the market share in the Eastern hemisphere. And we’re the two big 800-pound gorillas in the industry.”

The UFC’s revenues in 2019 were over $850 million USD while ONE’s where under $50 million USD for the year.

THE GROUP

ONE Championship is the trade name for Group One Holdings PTE LTD, a private company limited by shares that is registered in Singapore. Group One Holdings also has several other wholly owned subsidiaries. These subsidiaries include:

New additions to the Group in 2018 include One Studios Pte Ltd, One Championship Malaysia Sdn Bhd, and PT One Championship Indonesia. 0.04% of PT One Championship Indonesia is held by One Warrior Series Pte Ltd

In 2018, the Japanese Company Dentsu Inc., was issued 3,368,839 ordinary shares of One eSports Pte Ltd for $13,600,000 and a 19.9 share of ownership in the eSports subsidiary.

The finances of only a few of these subsidiaries have been released, but those that we have show they are operating at a loss.

REVENUES

As mentioned ONE Championship saw record revenue in 2019, generating S$62 million for the Group. This continued their trend of impressive revenue increases as ONE’s CAGR has been 65% since 2012.

Looking at the dis-aggregate of their revenues we see a decrease in sponsorship but an increase in almost all the other categories. The most dramatic increase is seen in Broadcast revenue which increased by S$25 million in a year and represented 72% of all their revenue.

In previous years barter transactions made up almost ²?₃ of all their revenues, but they discontinued their use of a “barter” category in 2018’s statement and seem to have incorporated it into their sponsorship and broadcast revenues. It is now impossible to tell how much of these broadcasts revenues are really from cash payments versus “non-cash considerations.” (Paul Gift has looked at their use of barter transactions in the past.)

LOSSES

Losses continue to grow for ONE Championship as in 2019 they reported a record S$130 million (or US$99 million) in losses. Accumulated losses have also grown, reaching S$305 million (or US$229 million) by the end of 2019.

EXPENSES

The largest single item expense ONE has is marketing. In 2018, it was S$49 million (US$37 million) and 130% of their revenue. In 2019, it was S$72 million (US$54 million) and 116% of their revenue. During those two years, marketing costs were approximately 40% of all their expenses.

This is very comparable to what the UFC spends on marketing. In 2015, accord the UFC’s Lender Presentation, the UFC spent US$51 million on marketing. In the 3 previous years, according to their Company Overview, they averaged US$42 million in marketing expenses.

The major difference between the two companies isn’t the amount spent of marketing, but the share of revenue that is spent on it. From 2012-14 marketing was 9% of the UFC’s total revenue each year. In 2015 it was 8%.

In 2019, ONE’s marketing expenses were 116% of revenue. In 2018 they were 130% of revenue.

Unlike most other MMA promotions that have operated at a loss for an extensive period of time, ONE does not hold any debt. Instead of relying on loans to keep them afloat, they have depended on investors, who have put a sizable amount into the Company.

From their funding through the end of December, ONE had raised a total of S$372,181,381 in capital. Of this, only S$83,008,955 was remaining as of December 31, 2019. They have since issued new shares for a consideration of S$99,190,000. How much capital they still have available is currently unknown.

Despite having accumulated losses of about S$305 million as of 2019, Chatri Sityodtong remains very bullish about ONE’s future. “Based on our current trajectory (even with Covid-19), I predict that ONE Championship will be profitable within 12 months and we are on track.”

The study focused on UFC and Bellator shows held between 2014 and 2018.

In 2016 the California State Athletic Commission adopted the practise of early weigh-ins in an attempt to mitigate the negative affects of rapid weight cutting in MMA. The practise, which saw fighters make their official weight in the morning of the day prior to competition, instead of the night before competition, has since been adopted by athletic commissions across the US and beyond.

A recent study, titled ‘Evaluation of the early weigh-in policy for mixed martial arts events adopted by North American athletic commissions’, examined what affect this change made to the rate at which fighters missed weight. The study also examined how severely fighters missed weight before and after the adoption of early weigh-ins.

According to that study, the early weigh-in policy may not have curbed the negative effects of rapid weight cutting. And it might have made things worse.

The study examined weight cuts and misses for UFC and Bellator shows between 2014 (two years before early weigh-ins were instituted) and 2018. The study showed that prior to early weigh-ins 5.7% of fighters missed weight and, on-average, they weighed in 2.9lbs over their limits.

The study showed both these figures increased after early weigh-ins were instituted. With early weigh-ins the rate that fighters missed weight increased to 8.4% and the average amount of weight they missed by increased to 3.9 lbs.

Additionally, the study also found that there was an almost 10% increase in the amount of times fighters missed weight by more than 4 lbs.

In their conclusion the researchers behind this study wrote that, “These results appear to indicate that the [early weigh-in policy] has not altered weight cutting culture in MMA in a positive manner.” The study’s authors suggested that ‘longitudinal weight monitoring’—where weight is measured often over a long period of time—might be a better solution for mitigating the risks of rapid weight-cutting.

Erik Magraken wrote about this study on his excellent CombatSportsLaw.com. He included the following summary of the study’s results, which also highlighted factors the study did not take into account:

Two key things to consider, however, is whether more fighters are competing while dehydrated and whether more fighters are being harmed from weight cuts themselves. While having more athletes miss weight and having the misses be by a greater margin is not ideal important measures of success are whether there is harm reduction and whether athletes are stepping into the cage with more adequate levels of hydration than prior to these reforms. A driving force behind the early weigh in reform was addressing the harms from severe dehydration. The study does not shed light on whether these goals are being met.