ONE Championship is home to the planet’s best combat sports athletes, and ONE Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong understands their desire to compete for a World Title. The promotion’s welterweight and lightweight straps are currently held by Christian Lee, and a plethora of stars in both divisions are hungry to challenge for gold. 

However, with “The Warrior” and his family mourning the tragic loss of his sister, Victoria Lee, Sityodtong has been respecting their space.

Chatri Sityodtong presented his competition-boosting idea for certain divisions of ONE

Following the conclusion of ONE Fight Night 11 on Prime Video this past weekend, the ONE co-founder revealed that, with the go ahead from Lee, he has made the first move to keep the divisions competitive by introducing interim World Titles. “I did ask Christian for his blessing. We’re going to do interim title fights – 100 percent. Both in lightweight and welterweight divisions,” Sityodtong told Nic Atkin of SCMP MMA.

The lightweight division is stacked with elite warriors worthy of challenging for a World Title. Turkish finishing machine Dagi Arslanaliev sits at #2 in the division, and, apart from a disqualification loss in 2017, only the reigning king has been able to stop his onslaught.

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Russian powerhouse Saygid Izagakhmaev holds the #3 spot after three wins from as many promotional appearances, and he would jump at the chance to battle for the belt. Of course, former titleholder Ok Rae Yoon can also stake his claim for a shot at interim gold, given that he sits in the top-ranked position, as can #4-ranked Halil Amir and #5-ranked Shinya Aoki.

Chatri Sityodtong wanted to make worthy matchups after analyzing all the sides of a bout

The welterweight division may offer a more straightforward picture when it comes to who would compete for the interim divisional strap. Murad Ramazanov remains unbeaten in ONE, so he is an undeniable prospect, and Sityodtong shared an interesting idea that has emerged recently.

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“I think Murad Ramazanov is definitely one of those guys. I think an interesting one, though, is RDR (middleweight king Reinier de Ridder) says he wants to move down to welterweight. And he wants to fight for the title. That could be a fun fight, I have no idea if that’s going to happen, but RDR versus Murad might be one,” he said. “They’re just toying with a bunch of different ideas right now. But obviously worthy ones. We want to make good fights and worthy of the world title, of course.”