ONE Championship co-founder and former CEO Victor Cui, who has also served as CEO of the CFL’s Edmonton Elks, has been named as a leading force behind combat sports reforms in the Canadian Province of Alberta.
Cui, who earned a black belt in Taekwondo, was a key figure early in ONE Championship’s run, before moving on to the world of football, leading the Elks in 2022 and 2023.
On Tuesday, Alberta Minister of Tourism and Sport Joseph Snow named Cui as the man who will “lead the engagement” as Alberta looks to reform combat sports oversight in the province. Barely a week ago, Alberta amateur mixed martial artist Trokon Dousuah died following a fight under the Ultra MMA banner in the province — the first recorded death of an MMA fighter in Canadian history.
That tragedy came on the heels of the Tim Hague inquiry releasing its findings. Hague, a former UFC fighter, died from a brain hemorrhage sustained during a boxing match in the province in 2017.
The circumstances around that fight being sanctioned, not to mention Dousuah’s, were questionable at best. Multiple errors were made in both cases, though the Dousuah incident remains under investigation by the RCMP. The amateur MMA fighter was asthmatic and had joined a program that promised a fight after just eight weeks of training, from a company that had seen several deaths under its banner during boxing events run in the U.K.
Same-day weigh-ins, virtually extinct in MMA, and a lack of safety equipment for amateur fighters also raised questions about whether the event held on Cree First Nation territory in Enoch, AB on November 23, 2024 should even have been sanctioned.
The card, billed as a charity event, was under the purview of the Penhold Combative Sports Commission, a traveling commission. Alberta, unlike every other province and state in the U.S. and Canada, relies on municipal commissions to oversee combat sports, rather than state/provincial bodies.
“We take athlete safety seriously, and we’re taking steps to ensure that combative sport participants can safely compete in the sports that they love,” read a statement by Snow in Tuesday’s press release. “The public fatality inquiry into the death of Timothy Hague, who passed as a result of injuries sustained while competing in 2017, was published on Nov. 5, including recommendations on how to increase athlete safety in combative sports. I’m grateful to the Honourable Justice Sharpe for her work on this file, and we are carefully reviewing the recommendations outlined in the report.
“Right now, Alberta is the only province where combative sports are sanctioned by municipal governments. As we review the recommendations and engage with our partners, we will also look at what steps would need to be taken to establish a provincial combative sport commission in Alberta.”
On Victor Cui, the minister wrote that “Victor has served as the CEO of the Edmonton Elks and is the co-founder of ONE Championship, a global martial arts media organization. Victor’s extensive experience working with governments around the world, helping establish combative sport commissions and improve athlete safety, will be a vital asset in this work.”
