ONE Championship to hold ‘automatic rematches’ instead of fight reviews

MANILA, Philippines – Singapore MMA promotion ONE Championship has said it will do away with official fight reviews of controversial decisions in its bouts beginning this year.

This because they have already disbanded the ONE competition committee, which oversaw the official fight reviews.

In place of fight reviews, the promotion will be doing "automatic rematches".

Last year saw a bevy of "controversial" finishes in ONE Championship, including one involving Filipina fighter Denice Zamboanga who lost in a highly questioned decision against South Korea's Seo Hee Ham.

The competition committee did an official review of the fight but ruled in favor of Ham.

READ: ONE Championship upholds Denice Zamboanga's controversial loss

In the tail end of the year, former ONE Lightweight World Champion Christian Lee also called for an official review of his title defense loss against Ok Rae Yoon.

And ONE's first event of the year also came with a "controversial" bout between Supergirl and Ekaterina Vandaryeva with the decision going Supergirl's way.

Both fighters agreed to an immediate rematch to clear out any doubt on who should've won.

While this is the first time that ONE Championship has disbanded its competition committee and have done away with fight reviews entirely, it is not unheard of that the promotion sought an immediate rematch in a close bout.

An example is Joshua Pacio in 2019 when he lost his ONE strawweight strap to Yosuke Saruta in January only to regain in back in a rematch in April.