ONE Championship celebrates International Women's Day

On International Women’s Day, ONE Championship celebrated with all women, including all their world champions.

The promotion posted photos of their top women athletes who currently hold a world title in ONE Championship.

All five women represent the very best of ONE Championship’s female fighters but are certainly not the only women to excel in their respective sports.

The first photo features ONE Women’s Atomweight World Grand Prix winner Stamp Fairtex and ONE women’s atomweight world champion Angela Lee. Lee is set to make her much-awaited return to the Circle at ONE X on March 26 to defend her world title against Stamp.

Xiong Jing Nan is also featured in the collage. The ONE women’s strawweight world champion has been an unstoppable force in her division, defeating anyone who dared to challenge her for the world title.

ONE women’s atomweight Muay Thai world champion Janet Todd and ONE women’s atomweight kickboxing world champion Allycia Hellen Rodrigues complete the cast of world champions.

Todd has been on a tear in the promotion, with six straight victories that include two world title defenses. Meanwhile, Rodrigues shocked the world in her debut to capture Stamp’s world title before taking a break from competition to give birth to her first child.

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ONE Championship has been all-in on promoting women

While International Women’s Day gives others a chance to celebrate women, ONE Championship has always strived in promoting women whenever possible.

It crowned the youngest world champion in MMA history when Angela Lee won the inaugural ONE women’s atomweight world title back in 2016. In 2018, Xiong Jing Nan became the first-ever Chinese world champion in MMA history.

In 2021, Asia’s largest martial arts organization mounted its first-ever all-women’s event called ONE: Empower. The show featured the quarterfinal round of the ONE Women’s Atomweight World Grand Prix, as well as Xiong Jing Nan’s world title defense against world-renowned grappler Michelle Nicolini.

In 2020, Angela Lee stepped away from competition after she announced that she became pregnant with her first child. While it certainly could have been easy to strip Lee of her world title due to inactivity, ONE Championship instead stood behind Lee and made the right stand by allowing Lee to spend her time away as an equivalent to "maternity leave" in a regular work setting.

ONE Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong said being pregnant should be celebrated, not punished. Instead, the ONE Women's Atomweight World Grand Prix was held. It featured the best fighters in the division in a battle for supremacy and the right to challenge Lee upon her return.

Stamp Fairtex was later crowned the winner of the tournament and is now set to take on Lee for the world title in the headlining bout of ONE X, the promotion’s 10-year anniversary show.