One thing that was appealing about ONE Championship’s U.S. broadcast deal with Turner Sports is the door being open for some cool cross promotion, and we got a taste of that Friday night.
Former UFC fighters Eddie Alvarez and Sage Northcutt, who signed with ONE Championship last year, made an appearance on “Inside the NBA” with host Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kenny Smith. For you hardcore MMA fans who don’t pay attention to the NBA, just know that Shaq and Chuck always needle the hell out of each other, and it produces some of the funniest sports moments on TV.
That was pretty much the case here, too. Check it out.
Here’s Shaq damn near kicking Alvarez into oblivion (via Twitter):
And here’s Shaq going in for the sneak attack on Chuck (via Twitter):
It was a fun segment all in all, and you can watch the entire thing here (via Facebook)
Former UFC and Bellator champion Alvarez make his ONE debut March 31 against Timofey Nastyukhin at “ONE Championship: A New Era,” which streams on B/R Live. Northcutt’s promotional debut takes place May 17 against Cosmo Alexandre.
For more on “ONE Championship: A New Era,” visit the MMA Rumors section of the site.
The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.
