ONE Championship lit Denver, Colorado, on fire for the second year in a row with its return visit on September 6.
ONE 168: Denver showcased the company’s unique brand of martial arts and capped off the night with Superlek Kiatmoo9 claiming the ONE Bantamweight Muay Thai World Title in epic fashion.
Per Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, ONE scored a $1.28 million gate with over 10,000 fans in attendance.
The attendance surpassed that of WWE’s NXT brand, which held its premium live event, No Mercy, on September 1. The event had around 6,000 in paid attendance. The event also eclipsed WWE Raw’s live gate the following night on September 2.
The performance inside the Ball Arena surprised Meltzer, who has been covering professional wrestling and martial arts for decades.
The figures show that ONE is building a strong presence in the United States. Their events give fans a taste of mixed martial arts, submission grappling, kickboxing, and Muay Thai. The variety on display has thrilled Colorado audiences for two straight years and given ONE more reason to return to the U.S.
Colorado has proven to be an excellent market for combat sports and martial arts specifically. The fans in the state have come through with exceptional ambiance for ONE’s exciting product in back-to-back years with raucous audiences.
The latest figures reveal how well ONE is doing as it broadens its horizons, but also that the future is incredibly bright for martial arts as a whole.