Author: Anton Tabuena

Alistair Overeem is looking fit ahead of his trilogy with Badr Hari.

Alistair Overeem and Badr Hari tipped the scales Friday in the Netherlands, making their kickboxing trilogy official. Overeem came in looking fit at 112.8 kg (248.7 lbs), which is almost seven pounds lighter than his last bout in the UFC in 2021. Hari came in a bit heavier at 114.4 kg (252.2 lbs).

The pair faced each other twice in the past, with Overeem pulling off a huge upset by knocking out Hari at Dynamite 2008. Hari got revenge at the K-1 World Grand Prix semi-finals in 2009, badly dropping Overeem twice and securing a TKO with the two knockdown rule.

Afterwards, the hulking Dutch fighter was dubbed “Ubereem” as he went on an incredible tear in both kickboxing and MMA, winning the 2010 K-1 World Grand Prix and holding titles in K-1, DREAM and Strikeforce simultaneously.

More than a decade later, the two heavyweight strikers will get to settle the score. At Glory Collision 4, the 37-year-old Hari will again be the favorite against the now 42-year-old Overeem.

The Glory Collision 4 main card PPV starts Saturday at 2 p.m. ET, with the prelims being streamed for free on YouTube earlier at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Watch the staredown and check out the full weigh-in results below:

Main Card:

Badr Hari (114.4 kg) vs. Alistair Overeem (112.8 kg)

Tiffany Van Soest (55 kg) vs. Sarah Moussaddak (55 kg) [Super bantamweight title]

Sergej Maslobojev (94.4 kg) vs. Tarik Khbabez (94.6 kg) [Light heavyweight title]

Tyjani Beztati (69.9 kg) vs. Stoyan Koprivlenski (70 kg) [Lightweight title]

Petchpanomrung (64.9 kg) vs. Abraham Vidales (64.8 kg) [Featherweight title]

Levi Rigters (114.4 kg) vs. Tariq Osaro (125.5 kg)

Prelims:

Serkan Ozcaglayan (83.6 kg) vs. Cesar Almeida (84.9 kg)

Felipe Micheletti (95 kg) vs. Donegi Abena (95 kg)

Michael Boapeah (84.1 kg) vs. Sergej Braun (84.9 kg)

ONE Championship’s finances are not looking good.

Despite all their big claims, ONE Championship’s losses continue to grow at an alarming rate.

In each of the last few years, Bloody Elbow has obtained copies of ONE Championship’s annual financial filings with ACRA, which is Singapore’s close equivalent to the SEC. When their 2020 numbers showed $48 million in losses for the year, ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong basically claimed fake news:

“I’ll just say like look, the internet is a dangerous place if you believe everything you read,” Sityodtong said in September 2021. “There was tons of inaccuracies, tons of errors, it’s not even like one or two, if it were just like one or two I would point it out. I mean like, it’s not worth addressing. Again, it’s like I said, um, like, I like to let the truth speak over time.”

A year later, Group One Holdings, the parent company to ONE Championship, has again filed their latest financial statements with ACRA. Bloody Elbow has secured a copy of these documents, and apart from again showing big losses in 2020, it also revealed how that number has more than doubled in 2021.

According to their recent filing, ONE’s losses in 2021 are now in triple digits at $111 million. With that enormous number, ONE’s has total accumulated losses of $383 million as of December 31, 2021.

ONE reported $56 million in “marketing expenses” and $50 million in “administration and other expenses” for the year.

These latest annual filings were signed on August 8, 2022 by two company directors, Chatri Trisiripisal (Sityodtong) and Teh Hua Fung, as well the public accounting firm Ernst & Young.

ONE Championship’s finances: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

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Increased revenue?

ONE reported their revenues for the year at $67.7 million. This total is a 19% increase from 2020’s $56.8 million. The majority of revenue came from broadcast rights, which total more than $50 million in 2021, a small increase from the $47 million they reported the previous year.

The second largest source of revenue for ONE was sponsorship income, which totaled $9.2 million in 2021, an almost 30% increase from 2020, when it totaled $7.1 million. Digital platform revenues where also noteworthy, seeing the largest increase from $1.75 million in 2020 to almost $7 million in 2021.

It’s worth noting however that ONE still includes non-cash components as part of their total revenue. Deal Street Asia, which was first to report on these latest filings, also pointed out how over 97% ($66.2M) of ONE’s total 2021 revenue is comprised of goods or services being transferred “over time” in the future.

Readers of last years financial statements might notice a discrepancy in what was reported last year and what this new filings shows for 2020. After revisiting “the estimation approach in determining the non-cash consideration for certain contracts” ONE has restated their broadcast revenues and marketing expenses.

An additional $8.6 million has been added to their 2020 broadcast revenues, which has mostly been offset by an $8.8M increase in marketing expenses. This restatement raises the question as to how much of their revenues is really from cash transactions and how much is it from barter.

ONE has used barter transactions in the past to apparently inflate their revenues. Starting in 2018 when Bloody Elbow and other outlets began reporting on their finances, ONE eliminated the category, and began grouping in barter transactions with broadcast and sponsorship revenues.

In their newest filing, ONE notes that “The Group recognises broadcasting and sponsorship revenue for cash and non-cash consideration.”

Management is required to use judgement to determine the fair value of non-cash consideration received and had relied on the rate cards provided by the sponsorship partners, after assessment of its rate cards at the contract inception to the publicly available market rates or quotes from vendors in similar business.

This has a corresponding impact on cost of sales recognised which will equate to the amount of revenue recognised.

It is impossible therefore to determine how much of their revenues from broadcasting and sponsorship or how much of their $56 million in marketing expenses, are still composed of these barter transactions.

A 2020 redeemable convertible loan note, which is debt that can later be converted into equity, would also account for a big chunk of both their reported capital and losses for 2021.

This stems from a June 2020 convertible note of $72 million plus interest, which was converted to preference shares on November 2021 with a valuation of around $93 million. They counted $56 million of that as share capital — almost a quarter of the total capital they raised in 2021 — and $38 million as a one-time fair value loss.

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Is this sustainable?

ONE’s ballooning losses have only been made possible by their prolific ability to raise money despite everything.

ONE started 2021 with a share capital balance of $274 million, but with only $88 million remaining in cash and fixed deposits. With the issuance of preference shares that year, they raised another $243 million ($56 million it from the convertible note.) As of December 31, 2021, the Company ended the year with $519 million in share capital, but reported only $172 million in cash and fixed deposits.

With ONE on pace to easily break past $400 million in accumulated losses in 2022, just how sustainable is this situation? Will they convince more investors that they’ll be able to turn things around?

That could be what ONE is banking on, with Sityodtong recently claiming they’re on track for double-digit revenue growth in 2022, and expects to be profitable in three years.

This is something Sityodtong and other ONE executives have been repeatedly claiming through the years though.

In 2017, Sityodtong told the Financial Times the company was “very, very close to profitability,” and ended the year with accumulated losses of $67 million dollars.

In 2018, they told Variety that “annual revenues of $100 million are imminent,” but had those losses grow to $126 million.

In 2019, Sityodtong told Business Insider that the UFC and ONE Championship were a global duopoly in combat sports, “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.” They ended that year with $229 million in total losses.

In November 2020, Sityodtong told High Net Worth that “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.” ONE laid off a significant percentage of its workers that year, and had accumulated losses of $273.

For 2021, they claimed the reports on their finances were false, and that the “truth” would come out eventually. Their latest filings show that losses ballooned to $383 million that year. ONE now excuses 2020 as an “anomaly” due to the pandemic, and just like every year, claims 2022 is great and profitability is about to happen.

“We continue to grow our revenue year-on-year and enhance our cost efficiencies. We’re confident that we’re on a clear path to build a sustainable and profitable business in the long term,” a Group ONE Holdings spokesperson said in a prepared statement sent to Bloody Elbow and other outlets that asked for comment on their finances.

“2020 was an anomaly due to the restrictions imposed upon us by the global pandemic as we were unable to host any live events for several months. In 2021 as restrictions started to lift, we were able to resume investment in our core product of live events.

“We’ve gone from strength to strength in 2022 with multiple partnerships launched across the world that will have a significant impact on our future revenue and profitability as we continue to grow our brand globally.”

ONE declined to comment on Bloody Elbow’s questions on the amount of non-cash transactions being included as “revenue” for the company.

The big claims ONE has made to the public have yet to match the actual figures they report to the government in private.

Going forward, it’ll probably also be a lot harder for people to dig up their finances. With ONE recently re-domiciling in the Caymans and their more opaque structure on business, this 2021 report could possibly be the last financial statement to be publicly accessible, until or unless the company goes public.

One of the winners from the event asked him for money.

In an unprecedented move, UFC Vegas 61 became a closed door event, without fans or even media members allowed to attend.

When headliner Mackenzie Dern previously announced it was due to Facebook/Meta head Mark Zuckerberg having “rented out the whole event,” Dana White immediately issued a strong denial.

Surprise, surprise. As the event started on Saturday night, the controversial social media mogul was seen front and center, with barely anyone else in the venue. Technically, White may not have lied due to the circumstances around the word “rent,” but everything else was accurate. It became a closed door event catered to Zuckerberg, who happens to be a new BJJ and MMA fan.

Apart from Zuckerberg’s inner circle, it was pretty much just the UFC and ESPN production team and commission members. No fans or even media members were in attendance.

This didn’t happen during the height of the pandemic and all the lockdowns. This didn’t happen when A-list celebrities or even the US President attended UFC events as special guests either.

After basically fighting in a cage for the billionaire’s weekend entertainment, one of the winners decided to ask Zuckerberg for some money.

“I know Mark from Facebook is here. You can throw in a bonus too, you know? Help us out,” Ilir Latifi said after beating Aleksei Oleinik.

As expected, there were also mixed reactions from fighters and media members online, with some not happy about it being a private event set up for one of the richest people on earth.

“Stay home bro wtf,” Al Iaquinta quipped as he noted how the crowd is the best part of UFC events.

Another former UFC title contender Nate Quarry commented on how Zuckerberg “can’t be bothered to be among the unwashed masses.”

Apart from the change of atmosphere without a crowd, media members not being allowed meant the post-fight press conference and media scrums were also scrapped, lessening the exposure and spotlight these fighters would’ve otherwise received during the event.

Tom Hardy plans to compete in back-to-back weekends.

Tom Hardy is taking his jiujitsu journey seriously, and plans to remain active in the UK competition scene. The famous actor won three gold medals after competing in August and September, and he is already gearing up for a lot more BJJ matches before the year ends.

Just days after winning at gold at the UMAC BJJ Open, Bloody Elbow has learned that Hardy has already signed up to join at least two more events before the year ends.

The 45-year-old Hollywood star plans to compete on back-to-back weekends, signing up for the Nogi Jiu Jitsu British Open and Grappling Industries: London on December 3 and 11, respectively.

Hardy last competed as a four stripe blue belt in jiujitsu, and is currently entered to compete on the same belt rank.

The actor is registered to join the 79.5kg (175.3 lbs) Master 3 division at the British No Gi Open. At Grappling Industries the weekend after, Hardy is scheduled to join both their gi and no gi round robin tournaments at the 185 lbs Seniors division.

BJJ competition plans are always known to change and there’s still no word if he’ll also join other events, but as it stands Hardy could be vying for at least three more medals before 2022 ends.

The world famous actor seems to prefer joining BJJ events without much fanfare, but after making mainstream news headlines for winning two events, it’ll probably be tougher to keep his involvements quiet moving forward.

The Dark Knight Rises and Peaky Blinders star has had seven matches in two events so far, winning every bout by submission.

Hardy also has several upcoming projects lined up, including starring roles in the third installment of Venom and the Netflix movie Havoc.

Thor Silva is following in his father’s footsteps.

Wanderlei Silva’s son is officially 1-0 as an amateur MMA fighter.

With the MMA legend in his corner, 19-year-old Thor Silva picked up a first round TKO victory over Gabriel Bonfim. He got a takedown early and secured dominant position, before unleashing ground and pound and forcing the referee to step in with just 35 seconds left in the opening round.

Watch the video of the finish below:

The bout was part of the MMA portion for Fight Music Show 2, which was the same card that also saw Cris Cyborg win her boxing debut.

Thor Silva also competed in amateur Muay Thai in 2019, where he quickly finished his opponent in about 30 seconds.

Wanderlei, the legendary former PRIDE champion, recently retired from MMA at 46-years-old.

“Only parents know what it’s like. It’s a totally different feeling, but very emotional, because we know all the things that can happen in a fight,” Wanderlei said prior to Thor’s MMA debut. “I’ve been through it all and I know what your own effort is worth. He may be anyone’s son, have all the money available, but in a fight it’s your own effort that counts. The heart and the training. He’s been training hard and behaving like a professional.”

There were sanctioning issues in Cris Cyborg’s boxing debut.

Cris Cyborg won her boxing debut Sunday night in Curutiba, Brazil, but will it count on her record in BoxRec?

Cyborg won a clear eight round decision over Simone Silva at Fight Music Show 2, with the promotion advertising it as a professional bout. There were sanctioning issues for the fight though, with Silva still serving a 60-day medical suspension after getting knocked out in Texas last August.

According to a report from MMA Fighting, the OBBoxe commission refused to oversee the contest due to Silva’s suspension, and Associação Paranaense de Lutas was called to oversee that match only. So despite the match pushing through and Cyborg getting a win, it’s unclear if it’ll count as a pro bout or just an exhibition.

Silva technically had much more experience in the boxing ring, but she entered this bout after losing nine straight fights and has an overall record of 17-22.

Cyborg is a decorated MMA star that won just about every major women’s championship in the sport. Watch highlights of the former UFC champion’s boxing win below: