On Thursday, Feb. 27, ONE Championship announced their return to U.S. soil for the third time in the promotion’s history. On Friday, Aug. 1, at Ball Arena, ONE 173 will be the second show held at the venue in Downtown Denver, Colo. The event will be headlined by the long-awaited atomweight MMA title unification between champion Stamp Fairtex and interim champ Denice Zamboanga.
ONE Championship’s first show in the U.S. was ONE Fight Night 10 in May 2023, when Stamp scored a second-round knockout of Alyse Anderson with a live kick. That event took place in Broomfield, which is a suburb of Denver. Four months later, she secured the vacant atomweight title with a third-round TKO of Ham Seo-Hee at ONE Fight Night 14 in Singapore.
In the Spring of 2024, Stamp was supposed to have her first title defense against Zamboanga, but the bout was moved to June. However, Stamp suffered a knee injury, and the bout was scrapped. Zamboanga ended up winning a unanimous decision over Noelle Grandjean at that event, ONE 167, in a non-title bout.
The promotion had hoped to have Stamp defend her title at ONE 168 at Ball Arena in Denver in Sep. 2024, but she was not yet recovered. Then, in Jan. 2025, Zamboanga secured the interim title with a second-round TKO of Alyona Rassohyna at ONE Fight Night 27. The two will now face off on Aug. 1 to settle the score.
ONE Championship will be release other ONE 173 bouts and broadcast details in the coming months.