As Indonesian MMA continues its global ascension, One Pride MMA continues to be the tip of the spear.
At a press conference broadcast earlier this year, the promotion announced their entire 2024 schedule, with some new wrinkles and ambitions to elevate MMA in Indonesia. One Pride CEO Fransino Tirta, Indonesian Committee of Martial Arts Sports (KOBI) president Ardi Bakrie, and TV ONE Chief of Programming Reva Deddy Utama presented the plans through a seventy-minute live stream on YouTube.
Expansion around the Indonesian islands continues
While One Pride will take the month of April off for Ramadan, the promotion will continue to hold their monthly shows throughout Indonesia. 2023 was the first year that One Pride held shows outside the capital city of Jakarta, and in 2024, that trend will continue, re-visiting Semarang and Yogyakarta. In addition, June will see the first One Pride event land in Bali, while the East Javan city of Kediri will host its first event in September.
The graphic below shows the anticipated schedule for 2024, with several intriguing elements:
If all of the proposed weekends from the graphic are to be taken literally, the following would indicate the monthly One Pride Fight Night schedule:
April 2024- Off for Ramadan
May 11- One Pride Fight Night 78 (Jakarta)
June 8- One Pride Fight Night 79 (Bali) - co-promoted with WLF
July 13- One Pride Fight Night 80 (Semarang)
August 10- One Pride Fight Night 81 (Yogyakarta) - co-promoted with JCK
September 7- One Pride Fight Night 82 (Kediri)
October 12- One Pride Fight Night 83 (Bandung)
November 9- One Pride Fight Night 84 (Jakarta)
December 7- One Pride Fight Night 85 (Jakarta)
First crack at co-promotion
Another interesting tidbit from the graphic are the co-promoted shows with Chinese organizations. The top two Chinese MMA organizations- JCK and WLF- will both travel to Indonesia to host co-promoted shows with One Pride.
WLF will first host an event on the second weekend of June (which would be the 8th) in Bali. The Chinese promotion has already announced that Hailai Wusamo, Degaxue, and Eqiyuebu will participate in the event. No other fighters or a venue were announced by the press conference hosts for the Bali show.
On the second weekend of August (the 10th), One Pride will contend with another Chinese team, this time from JCK (Zhan Jue Cheng). Little is known about this show, but the central Javan city of Yogyakarta will host the event.
The graphic also notes that at the end of October (likely October 25th), a team of Indonesian fighters will travel to the WLF headquarters in Zhengzhou, Hunan, China, for part two of their co-promotion.
In addition to these Chinese organizations, Tirta presented another slide showing an intent to work with Indonesian martial arts organizations Prime Kumite (a karate-based league), Canggu Fight Night (a Bali-based organization hosted by the gym Bali MMA), and Indo Battle.
Indo Battle (or Indonesian Battle) is a grassroots promotion with the sole aim of sending Indonesian fighters to One Pride MMA. Headed by CEO Bianca Calista, Indo Battle will kick off in July in Jakarta, scheduled for the fourth weekend.
International broadcast ambitions with Fight Pass
Another lofty dream of the One Pride organization is to make themselves even more accessible to the international MMA fanbase. The speakers at the press conference revealed their hopes to sign a deal with UFC Fight Pass as an international broadcast partner this year. While the deal is not yet finalized at the time of this writing, the One Pride brass have traveled to the United States in February to meet with representatives from the UFC about a partnership.
Currently, the One Pride Fight Night broadcasts air internationally on the promotion's YouTube channel for a monthly subscription of $1/month.
While the sending of One Pride fighters to the UFC Performance Institute in Shanghai will be covered in the next article, the entire press conference can be viewed below: