Greg Jackson Fully Supporting ONE Championship's United States Arrival

ONE Championship has broken barriers throughout its relatively short history, and the promotion is set to finally make its way to the United States for its first-ever card with ONE Fight Night 10.

In a mixed martial arts (MMA) market heavily dominated by heavyweight promotions like the UFC and Bellator, longtime trainer Greg Jackson is throwing his support behind them.

Speaking with International Business Times sports editor and combat sports analyst Nissi Icasiano, Jackson explained his reasoning.

"It's huge because the more competition, the more different organizations that hold fights the better. Competition's a great thing, it pushes everybody up. It's so good that they're coming out here," Jackson said.

"I think it's super important to get as many high-level organizations working in the same area as possible because that brings up everybody's level. They're forced to be more competitive with the pay and everything, so I think ONE Championship's doing the entire MMA community a favor by coming to the United States."

While it can be argued that the combat sports market has been heavily saturated in recent years with many different regional and local organizations sprouting around, ONE Championship has found ways to make itself stand out.

Outside of the standard MMA affair, Chatri Sityodtong's company established an in-house kickboxing and Muay Thai league in 2018 as they sought to showcase the best pure strikers in the world.

Most recently, ONE Championship placed an emphasis on the niche world of submission grappling and has since crowned titleholders in the form of lightweight king Kade Ruotolo, one-half of the famed Ruotolo brothers, and flyweight phenom Mikey Musumeci.

As if wanting to give the U.S. audience a taste of what they have to offer, the MMA-heavy ONE Fight Night 10 also features two Muay Thai bouts and two cannot-miss submission grappling matchups.

"I think that's a great model because you're tapping into so many different markets. MMA isn't for everybody. Some people love Muay Thai, some people love the grappling so it only makes sense to kind of expand into these different markets," Jackson said of ONE Championship's many offerings.

"Frankly, the support there is very appreciated because we're combat sports athletes, coaches and we're involved in it. We learn from all of these other [disciplines]. Some from submission grappling, we take from Muay Thai, so the more you can support the guys that give us the information the better. I can't say enough good things about it."

ONE Fight Night 10 has a lot of potential show-stealers on the card, but all fans have their eyes on the main event matchup of flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and Adriano Moraes.

The MMA world has seen the pair trade knockout victories with eerily similar knee strikes to the face and the excitement for the trilogy bout is highly palpable.

But when asked about what match he and Jackson Wink MMA co-founder Mike Winkeljohn were most looking forward to, they were honest enough to admit that they have not followed the promotion religiously enough to make a pick.

"It's hard for me, even in the UFC stuff, to get excited about an individual fight that [doesn't involve] our fighters because we don't look at it the same way. We're fans, but... I do this all day, he (Winkeljohn) does it even more than I do and when we go home, the last thing we want to do is more MMA," Jackson stated.

"I'm just excited that the whole organization is coming because ONE Championship has such a big footprint worldwide. That is something that we want to get here [in the United States] and compete with the UFC because I think in many ways, we need that," Winkeljohn explained.

With them serving as the current trainers of Filipino stars Eduard Folayang and Joshua Pacio, it would not be all that surprising to see them appear cageside at a future ONE Championship event.