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ONE Championship chairman Chatri Sityodtong and his team will make history this week when they head back to Singapore to crown their inaugural women's atomweight champion in front of a sold-out Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Sold out arenas and history making fights are nothing new to Sityodtong or ONE Championship.

ONE is now the largest sports media property and MMA organisation in Asia but success wasn't something that was handed to Chatri. The story of how he built the organisation is truly compelling.

Chatri Sityodtong started from nothing but martial arts

Sityodtong, 45, is now instrumental in ONE’s success, driving the organisation with his incredible business acumen. Yet before he became a self-made multi-millionaire, he came from humble beginnings.

During the Asian financial crisis, Sityodtong, his parents and younger brother became homeless and survived on one meal a day. After his father went bankrupt, selling fruit on the street just to get by and eventually abandoning the family, Sityodtong was left alone to pick up the responsibility of provider.

If it weren’t for martial arts, he says, he wouldn’t be where he is today. He credits martial arts for having saved his life, rescuing him from hardship and poverty and the perils that came along with a life spent living constantly on the edge of a knife.

“It was a very bad time and my future looked very bleak. The only thing I really had at the time was my martial arts training - the mental strength, the discipline, the focus, the courage, the desire for continuous self-improvement. Most importantly, an unbreakable will, a warrior spirit to conquer adversity in life,” said Sityodtong.

“The lessons of martial arts, the gifts of martial arts are so precious that I really believe it's the greatest platform to unleash human potential. That's what gave me the strength and the courage and allowed me to bring my family out of poverty.”

Now, sitting on a fortune forged from hard work and an insistent desire to dig his family out from the trenches, Sityodtong can’t help but look back from whence he came.

"That's what love can do. That's what passion can do,” he said.

(Image: Getty)

From Harvard to Wall Street

With the gall to persevere, Sityodtong was then able to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School in the US. As a student, he couldn’t afford the subways, couldn’t afford taxis. To make money on the side, he delivered Chinese food and taught Muay Thai. He did many things just to survive. At one point, even his own mother came to live with him in his Harvard dorm room, against student policy.

Shortly after university, Sityodtong moved to Silicon valley, building a software company from the ground up with a few close friends. They raised $40million and employed 150 people. They eventually sold the business for $20m, giving Chatri his first taste of wealth.

Aged 30, Sityodtong was able to purchase an apartment in New York for his mother and put his younger brother through college. He then moved on to Wall Street, putting up a multi-million dollar hedge fund.

But Sityodtong still wasn’t satisfied. Something inside of him was yearning for more fulfillment.

“Once I became wealthy and I started making millions on Wall Street and being successful, I realised that money wasn't the only thing that drove me. My soul wasn't fulfilled,” he said. “After almost a decade on Wall Street, I wanted to do something with my life. Instead of taking, I wanted to give to the world and change the world.”

ONE Championship was born

Sityodtong launched ONE Championship alongside former ESPN Star Sports senior executive Victor Cui at a press conference in Singapore on July 14, 2011. MMA legends such as Anuwat Kaewsamrit, Eduard Folayang, Yodsanan Sityodtong, Ole Laursen, Leandro Issa, Orono Wor Petchpun and Rolles Gracie were all in attendance.

The first ONE Championship event was then held on September 3, 2011 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium and the promotion expanded rapidly across the Asian region and gained in popularity with shows in Jakarta, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Taipei, Phnom Penh, Beijing, Guangzhou and Yangon.

The future

While ONE championship is already the largest sports media property in Asia, Sityodtong still has big plans for expansion.

"There are four billion people in Asia, and two billion of them live in the same time zone," said Sityodtong. "There's an incredible opportunity for us to take advantage of, and we now have this batch of world champion martial artists, representing their countries on the biggest MMA stage in Asia.

"Going public in a major stock exchange in the world has always been a main goal of ours right from day one. It's not just a matter of when we want to do it (IPO), we need to make sure the stock market conditions are healthy, the investor appetite must be there, and you have to look at the current economic conditions as well."

The next stage for Chatri will be to stage the historic event in Singapore next week and then another successful event in Bangkok later in the month.

"It's only a matter of time before Singapore has its own world champion, and Angela has that chance," said Sityodtong. "It's a fantastic opportunity for her. But on the flip side, if Mei wins, it will be a huge moment for Japan too."

You can watch Angela Lee vs Mei Yamaguchi live this Friday at www.onefc.com/livestream