Arjan Bhullar signs new contract to remain with ONE Championship, still planning to pursue pro wrestling

Arjan Bhullar has reached an agreement on a new multi-fight contract that will keep him with ONE Championship after claiming the promotion’s heavyweight title this past April.

Bhullar made the announcement via The MMA Hour.

“I have re-signed. I’ve got a new deal, a multi-fight, multi-year deal that also allows me to pro wrestle. It’s a one of a kind deal, we haven’t seen in MMA. I know we’ve seen people like Ronda [Rousey] and Cain [Velasquez] get busy but that was after [fighting was done]. We’ve come to terms with ONE, absolutely.”

Prior to his deal being signed, Bhullar had been at odds with ONE Championship over his contract after he defeated Brandon Vera to claim the heavyweight title.

With the two sides unable to come to an agreement on a new deal, ONE ended up crowning an interim champion in Russian heavyweight Anatoly Malykhin after he knocked out Kirill Grishenko back in February.

Now ONE will look to unify the titles, although Bhullar mentioned that Malykhin can’t currently travel into Singapore where the promotion is based due to a travel ban from Russia following the invasion into Ukraine

Outside of his fighting career, Bhullar revealed that his new deal will also allow him to explore a future in professional wrestling, which is something he’s wanted to pursue since he first signed with ONE.

According to Bhullar, he had interest from major pro wrestling promotions but because of his prior contract with ONE, he was unable to actually enter any kind of negotiations.

“We had interest from both WWE and AEW,” Bhullar said. “We couldn’t engage in a formal deal because my contract wouldn’t allow it.”

It appears Bhullar will be able to explore those options under the terms of his new deal with ONE as he seeks to return to the cage later this year.