Ultimate Fighting Championship

• 1. Introduction

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  The Ultimate Fighting Championship was born from a simple, provocative question: what happens when a judoka fights a boxer? Or a wrestler faces a karate expert? On the 12th of November 1993, inside McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado, eight fighters from eight different disciplines stepped into a chain-link octagon to find out. The answer drew 86,592 pay-per-view subscribers that first night. Nobody involved expected a second event.

  Today the UFC is a global enterprise valued in the billions, owned by TKO Group Holdings and presiding over more than 578 contracted fighters across eleven weight divisions. But the road from that single Denver tournament to a seven-year, $7.7 billion media deal with Paramount Skydance runs through congressional campaigns against it, near-bankruptcy, a reality television show saved on a napkin, and the absorption of its greatest rival. These are the questions that shape the story: How does a sport nearly killed by politicians become a mainstream fixture? How does a $2 million purchase turn into a $4 billion sale? And what does it mean for a promotion to outlast every rival it ever faced?

• 2. The Octagon's Origins

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  Art Davie's original pitch was called "War of the Worlds" - an eight-man single-elimination tournament inspired by the Gracie family's "Gracies in Action" video series, which showed Brazilian jiu-jitsu students defeating practitioners of karate, kung fu, and kickboxing in Vale Tudo matches. Davie brought the idea to film director John Milius and martial artist Rorion Gracie, whose family's jiu-jitsu he wanted showcased before a wide audience.

  With 28 investors providing initial capital, WOW Promotions sought a television partner. Pay-per-view producers TVKO and SET both declined. Semaphore Entertainment Group, which had previously put on a tennis match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova, said yes in May 1993.

  The arena itself required some imagination. Rorion and Davie ruled out a roped ring, worrying fighters could escape through the ropes during grappling. SEG executives wanted something visually distinct from boxing and wrestling. Ideas floated included a moat with alligators, razor-wire fencing, electrified fencing, and men in togas. Art director Jason Cusson eventually designed an eight-sided cage of chain-link fencing, the trademarked Octagon. Cusson remained the group's production designer through UFC 27.

  When the first event was finally produced, UFC promoters pitched it to cable audiences as akin to a real-life Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat tournament. On the card: a kickboxer, a taekwondo practitioner, a savate fighter, a karate expert, a shootfighter, a sumo wrestler, a boxer, and a 175-pound Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt named Royce Gracie, the younger brother of co-founder Rorion. Royce submitted three opponents in succession - boxer Art Jimmerson, shootfighter Ken Shamrock, and savate fighter Gerard Gordeau - to claim the inaugural championship.

• 3. Congressional Fire

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  U.S. Senator John McCain saw a tape of the early UFC events in 1996 and called the fights "human cockfighting". He wrote to the governors of all fifty states, urging them to ban the sport. Thirty-six states complied, enacting laws against no-holds-barred fighting. New York passed its ban on the eve of UFC 12, forcing that event to relocate to Dothan, Alabama.

  The political pressure had an unintended structural effect. Facing extinction, UFC's leadership responded by systematically cleaning up the rules. UFC 12 introduced weight classes and banned fish-hooking. Gloves became mandatory at UFC 14, with kicks to the head of a downed opponent also banned. UFC 15 saw further restrictions on hair pulling, headbutting, small-joint manipulation, and groin strikes. Five-minute rounds arrived at UFC 21.

  UFC commissioner Jeff Blatnick and referee John McCarthy traveled the country, educating state athletic commissioners and arguing that the sport was not the bloodbath its critics claimed. Alongside matchmaker Joe Silva, they produced a manual of policies and procedures that many commissions still reference today. By April 2000, California was preparing to be the first state to codify MMA rules. New Jersey soon followed.

  The International Fighting Championships actually beat the UFC to the milestone: IFC held the first U.S.-sanctioned MMA event in New Jersey on the 30th of September 2000. Two months later, the UFC held UFC 28 under New Jersey's Unified Rules, its own first sanctioned event. By then, the political battle was mostly won - but the financial one was just beginning.

• 4. The $2 Million Gamble

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  Semaphore Entertainment Group, which had built the UFC from the ground up, was nearly bankrupt by 2000. Station Casinos executives Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and their business partner Dana White approached SEG with a purchase offer. In January 2001, the Fertittas bought the UFC for $2 million and formed Zuffa, LLC as the controlling entity.

  Lorenzo Fertitta later recalled his attorneys telling him he was "crazy" because he "wasn't buying anything." What he believed he was buying was three letters. Along with the trademark, Zuffa acquired a wooden octagon and roughly a dozen fighter contracts. They later paid an additional $2 million to buy UFC's DVD rights from Lionsgate.

  White, placed as UFC president, later said that Donald Trump was one of the few early believers, with the UFC holding events at venues like the Trump Taj Mahal and the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The first television deal came through Fox Sports Net, which aired the first MMA match on American cable television in June 2002 - a Chuck Liddell vs. Vitor Belfort match at UFC 37.5 on The Best Damn Sports Show Period.

  The company was bleeding money. By 2004, Zuffa had accumulated $34 million in losses since the purchase. The event that kept the organization alive came in November 2002 at UFC 40, where a card headlined by Light Heavyweight Champion Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock sold 150,000 pay-per-view buys - roughly double the previous Zuffa average of 45,000 per event. Referee John McCarthy, standing in the Octagon that night, later said it was the first time he honestly believed MMA would survive in America.

• 5. A Show on a Napkin

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  With $34 million in losses and no mainstream television presence, the Fertitta brothers developed The Ultimate Fighter, a reality show in which up-and-coming fighters competed for a six-figure UFC contract. Networks rejected the idea until Spike TV agreed - provided the UFC paid the $10 million production costs itself.

  The first season launched in January 2005 in the timeslot following WWE Raw. The season finale featured light heavyweight fighters Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar in a fight that drew a 1.9 overall rating on the live broadcast. Dana White credits that fight with saving the UFC. According to White, the contract for the second season was signed outside the venue on a napkin immediately after the finale.

  The pay-per-view numbers tracked the show's momentum. UFC 52, the first event after TUF season one featuring Chuck Liddell avenging a loss to Randy Couture, drew 300,000 pay-per-view buys - double the 150,000 record set at UFC 40. By UFC 66, a rematch between Ortiz and Liddell crossed one million buys for the first time. UFC 66 was also in 2006, a year in which the promotion generated over $222,766,000 in pay-per-view revenue, surpassing both WWE and boxing for the single-year record.

  Spike remained the UFC's cable home until a seven-year deal with Fox was announced in August 2011. The first Fox broadcast, UFC on Fox: Velasquez vs. dos Santos in November 2011, peaked at 8.8 million viewers - the most-watched MMA event ever and the most-watched combat sports broadcast since the 2003 HBO bout between Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitschko.

• 6. Rivals Absorbed

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  At the height of its early-2000s struggles, the UFC faced a formidable competitor. Pride Fighting Championships, founded in Japan in 1997 with roots in shoot wrestling, was the world's most popular MMA promotion during the period when the UFC was scraping for sanctioning in rural American venues. Many of the UFC's best fighters left to compete in Pride, attracted by better pay and prestige.

  Pride's fall came from a different direction entirely. In 2006, its lucrative Japanese television contracts were terminated after a scandal revealed strong ties between the promotion and the yakuza. On the 27th of March 2007, Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta purchased the Pride brand. Dana White determined the model was not sustainable and the brand had become toxic in Japan. Rather than operating Pride separately, the UFC folded it, absorbing fighters including Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, Maurício "Shogun" Rua, Dan Henderson, Mirko Filipovic, and Wanderlei Silva. Pride's Japanese office closed on the 4th of October 2007, laying off twenty employees.

  Zuffa made two further acquisitions in December 2006 before the Pride deal: World Extreme Cagefighting, purchased partly to block the International Fight League from landing on Versus; and World Fighting Alliance, whose main assets were the fighter contracts of Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Lyoto Machida. WEC eventually merged into the UFC in October 2010, with José Aldo and Dominick Cruz named inaugural UFC champions of the featherweight and bantamweight divisions.

  On the 12th of March 2011, Dana White announced the purchase of Strikeforce, which operated as an independent promotion until its final show, Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine, on the 12th of January 2013.

• 7. Billion-Dollar Sale and Beyond

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  In 2015, the UFC reported revenue of $609 million, with 76 percent credited to media rights, pay-per-view, and Fight Pass subscriptions. The following year, Zuffa was sold to a group led by WME-IMG, along with Silver Lake Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and MSD Capital, for $4.025 billion - at the time the largest acquisition in sports history. Dana White, who owned 9 percent of the UFC, stayed on as president. Flash Entertainment, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, retained a 10 percent minority stake.

  Lorenzo Fertitta later revealed that an undisclosed bidder offered $5 billion, but the Fertittas chose WME-IMG because of an existing relationship with its CEO Ari Emanuel. In 2021, Endeavor - the renamed WME-IMG - bought out Zuffa's remaining shareholders for $1.7 billion, taking full ownership.

  In April 2023, Endeavor announced a merger between the UFC and WWE to form TKO Group Holdings, a publicly traded company. The merger closed on the 12th of September 2023, with the merger agreement valuing the UFC at $12.1 billion. Vince McMahon initially served as executive chairman of TKO before resigning on the 26th of January 2024, after a former WWE employee filed a lawsuit alleging sex trafficking and sexual assault.

  The Paramount Skydance deal announced in August 2025 - seven years, $7.7 billion - carries the UFC out of the pay-per-view model for numbered events entirely. All events will stream on Paramount+ in the United States, with selected numbered events also broadcast on CBS. TKO Group CEO Mark Shapiro called the pay-per-view model "outdated". The contract is one of the first major rights agreements reached since Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount.