Former champ Rich Franklin in talks for ONE FC executive job – with UFC's blessing

Former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin is close to taking an executive-level job with ONE FC – and he apparently has the UFC’s blessing.

Franklin, who made his UFC debut more than 11 years ago, today announced via Facebook that he’s been offered a vice president position with the Asia-based organization. He said he plans to head to the promotion’s Singapore headquarters to finalize the deal.

According to Franklin, he’s been given the green light from UFC co-owners and executives Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta.

As he posted today:

I have been in talks with ONE FC about taking a job with them. They offered me a position as VP. I will be heading to ONE FC headquarters in the next few weeks to work out the details. I met with Dana and Lorenzo at the end of last year and they gave me their blessing. I will keep you posted.

Franklin (29-7 MMA, 14-6 UFC), 39, hasn’t fought since a November 2012 loss to Cung Le, which moved him to 4-4 in his past eight fights. The Ohio native can now be found in Southern California, where he recently opened ZeLin Juice and Fusion Cafe. The venture has put his fighting career on hold.

Franklin recently told MMAjunkie he’s still training and has a fight remaining on his current UFC deal. He said he planned to fulfill the contract.

“I have one fight left on my contract with the UFC, and it is my intention to fulfill that contract,” he said. “I’m working all the time, but I’m still training quite a bit. I just have to get my business to a point where realistically I could walk away and put it on cruise control, or at least have the mechanisms in place where the business doesn’t need my daily attention, and that’s just not the case now.

“Until that’s possible, I can’t commit myself to a full-time training regimen.”

A front-office job with ONE FC, though, means his fighting days would likely be over.

A titleholder from 2005-2006, Franklin was one of the UFC’s bigger stars during the MMA boom that followed the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2005. Although two title losses to Anderson Silva brought an end to his title hopes, he’s continued fighting some of the sport’s biggest names in recent years, including Wanderlei Silva, Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell, Vitor Belfort and Dan Henderson.

ONE FC, which launched in 2011 and has hosted 14 shows to date, is available in 70 countries. In North America, the promotion’s events stream as online pay-per-view offerings.

For more on the UFC and ONE FC’s schedules, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site,