Rich Franklin: ONE Championship plans for Colorado after 'really important' legalization of ruleset

ONE Championship has plans to hold events on American soil in 2022, and promotion executive Rich Franklin believes Colorado has helped lead the charge.

In July, Colorado’s Office of Combative Sports, led by executive director Tony Cummings, approved the ONE Championship ruleset, which includes knees to the head of a grounded opponent – a deviation from the unified rules of the Association of Boxing Commissions.

While Colorado is still part of the ABC, other members have voiced concerns to MMA Junkie that such deviations lead to competition among commissioning bodies to appease the requests of promotions looking to bring combat sports events (and revenue) to new regions.

For ONE Championship, however, the approval from Colorado was just what the promotion needed to break the ice, Franklin told MMA Junkie Radio.

“Colorado has been really important for us actually,” the UFC Hall of Famer said. “We’ve been able to basically use that as a building block. We’ve gone to several other athletic commissions at this point in time, and believe it or not, I have approval from several states at this point.”

Ground strikes and scoring differences aren’t the only things accompanying the adopted ONE Championship rules, according to Franklin. The promotion’s vice president added that an uptick in pre-fight medical testing is in store for its athletes.

“There are a lot of other things that come with our rulesets,” Franklin said. “We do fight week CT scans. I feel like we’re probably the only major organization in the world that does that. All organizations required head scans, MRIs, CTs, or whatever during your medicals, which we require, as well. But we also get our athletes (CTs during fight week). It’s built into their fight week schedules that they go back to the hospitals during fight week to get CT scans to make sure that something didn’t happen in the approaching weeks of the fight. We also have our hydration protocols, which I’m a huge fan of.”

Franklin didn’t reveal a specific date for the promotion’s Colorado debut. He did say fans should expect a show in Denver some time in late 2022. If it happens, it’ll be the promotion’s first event held in the U.S.

“Everything has been approved,” Franklin said. “I think Denver is going to be one of the major cities that we’re looking at when we’re coming here next year. Our schedule looks somewhat aggressive. I don’t think I can publicly release how many events or any stuff like that on how many we’re doing next year, but I would look for us to be (there) on the back-half of the year.”

Check out MMA Junkie Radio’s full interview with Rich Franklin below: