Leo Vieira recently decided to share some insight into how the ONE Championship submission grappling contracts actually work. All fight promotions are pretty tight-lipped when it comes to information like that, usually because there are competitors out there who might be able to make good use of it. One thing that has been known for a while is that ONE Championship offer exclusive contracts, and it’s something that many have criticised when it comes to submission grappling. ONE Championship is an MMA promotion and exclusive contracts are par for the course there, but submission grappling is a whole different sport and they don’t quite work as well here.
Vieira was hired as the Vice President of Submission Grappling at ONE Championship, so he’s really the best source of behind-the-scenes information. He decided to share some of it in a recent podcast, and one of the key topics was that exclusivity clause in their contracts:
“Going back to exclusivity, it was similar to the MMA contract, exclusively for everything, exclusively for MMA. Then I talked to Chatri (Sityodtong), and I said, ‘Chatri, this doesn’t work for grappling. What grappling? He doesn’t grapple three times a year; he grapples more times. Understand, the guy who is active is the one who makes the action exciting.’”
Sityodtong is a combat sports promoter and although he has a ton of martial arts experience himself, Vieira is able to come at the problem from a different perspective as a former elite BJJ competitor himself. That input has been invaluable in creating the ONE Championship submission grappling divisions, and Vieira went on to explain that the contracts themselves are often misunderstood:
“They started using the narrative that we made exclusivity and scared people. I didn’t have a voice, you know? The guys didn’t know, and maybe they’ll discover now what our contract really is. Our contract is about freedom for the grapplers, not like MMA. It’s completely different.”
According to Leo Vieira, submission grappling contracts at ONE Championship start out much more open and only become exclusive when a competitor reaches the very top of the mountain:
“Our contract becomes exclusive if you are our champion. If you have a belt, you become exclusive.”
Several top ONE Championship competitors have stepped outside the promotion in the past, with several of them competing in the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational just recently. Vieira stressed that those opportunities are open to anyone under contract at ONE Championship, just with a few minor restrictions:
“You compete in any event; ADCC, CJI, IBJJF, whatever. You don’t compete in events that could compete with our brand, events that theoretically might do no gi superfights.”
The full interview with Leo Vieira where he explains how ONE Championship submission grappling contracts work was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Connect Cast:
