One of the things that Mikey Musumeci likes about ONE Championship is their equal treatment of male and female fighters.
This is even more important to Mikey than it already would be, because his sister – Tammi Musumeci – is an elite athlete who hasn’t competed in a while.
He shared more in a recent interview with Jiu-Jitsu Times:
One thing I’d like to say about all this is that ONE Championship treats the women the same as the men. I think that’s very special.
And I think that it’s very discouraging as a high-level woman competitor in Jiu-Jitsu today, because a lot of women feel that they have to sell themselves with sex appeal, and do all these different things, and it’s kind of ridiculous how it is in society today.
And it can make a girl feel discouraged to keep competing, if that’s the way that you get publicity.
Which is exactly why ONE Championship brought back Tammi’s passion for BJJ:
So, ONE Championship being how they are, where the men and women are equal, it gave my sister a passion for Jiu-Jitsu – not just as a hobby, but where she really loves it again.
I actually got emotional when she came to Singapore, and got to experience ONE Championship for the first time, and how Chatri runs it, and how the women and men are treated the same, and are paid the same.
It’s incredible.
Indeed, Mikey got emotional seeing his sister happy:
I got so emotional, seeing my sister happy again, and enjoying Jiu-Jitsu – more like when she was a kid, and was up-and-coming, and trying to win Worlds, and was excited.
There was an older Tammi that I haven’t seen in a long time [because] the regular, toxic Jiu-Jitsu community kind of killed her enjoyment for competing.
So I’m just so thankful for ONE Championship and what they’re doing, and I think that they deserve recognition for how they treat the women. I think it’s amazing.
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