Phil Baroni claims ONE Championship has put on ‘worked fights’

In response to the talk of a Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren boxing match where he too called out Paul, Phil Baroni came out to claim an old employer fixed Askren’s fights as well as one of his own.

Baroni, 16-19, has enjoyed a fruitful 19-year MMA career that has seen him compete around the world. Most notably fans will remember him for his runs with the UFC from 2001 to 2005 followed by his time in PRIDE FC.

More towards the latter half of “The New York Badass'” career he would end up in Kallang, Singapore as part of the first-ever ONE Championship event. Baroni would fight in ONE on three separate occasions as he went 1-2 alternating results.

In those two defeats, Baroni ended up on the wrong side of a unanimous decision against Yoshiyuki Yoshida before being TKO’d by Nobutatsu Suzuki in what was his last fight with the promotion. Without specifying, Baroni has now come out to claim that one of those fights was a work.

https://twitter.com/philbaroni/status/1341977902804557825

“I mean does he just want to kill some jabroni bum?” Phil Baroni tweeted in response to a fan. “All @benaskren fights were worked. I mean I even put a Japanese guy over for @ONEChampionship Everyone knows ONE has worked fights”

As for Askren, the former Bellator welterweight king came over to the promotion in 2014, a year after Baroni departed. “Funky” would go on to enjoy an undefeated run consisting of six wins before heading to the UFC.

In that span that saw him as the ONE welterweight champion, he would only see the judges’ scorecards on one occasion. The rest of his outcomes were primarily via his vintage ground and pound strikes as he earned three TKOs to two submissions. One of those TKOs coming against the last ONE opponent of Baroni’s in Suzuki.