Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) is taking its biggest step in the MMA world.
On Thursday, Jake Paul’s combat sports organization announced that it would be merging with the Professional Fighters’ League (PFL). The move creates a mega-promotion that hopes to combine the latter’s deeply talented roster with the former’s media exposure.
There is, however, one major question that looms: will the MVP-PFL actually become a major rival to the UFC, long considered the sport’s hegemon?
Before delving into the history of the UFC’s would-be competitors and how MVP-PFL aims to do differently and better, it helps to understand the origins of MMA.
Contrary to popular belief, the UFC was not actually the first promotion to be established. That distinction instead arguably goes to CV Productions, which was founded in 1979 and launched the “Tough Guy Contest”, later renamed “Battle of the Superfighters”. It featured three tenets that would become standard in MMA: weight classes, medical oversight, and state regulation.
Six years later came Shooto in Japan, arguably the first popular MMA organization. Next, in 1993, came the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC for short, and the rest is history.
Over the years, several organizations came to challenge the UFC for supremacy. Pride was the first and foremost of them, boasting legendary names like Fedor Emelianenko and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. When that folded, Scott Coker (pictured below)’s Strikeforce took up the mantle, most notably launching the careers of the likes of Ronda Rousey and Daniel Cormier.
Both Pride and Strikeforce, however, were eventually acquired by the UFC. So was World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), which held a focus on the lower weight classes (<155 lbs.) and launched the careers of the likes of Urijah Faber and Jose Aldo.
The UFC maintained a seeming monopoly over all the top talent, but it was not as if there was no competition. Bellator was founded in 2008 and immediately made a niche for itself with its seasonal tournaments. It lasted five years before Coker took over in 2013 and turned it into a UFC clone, complete with signing castoffs from that promotion like Tito Ortiz and “Rampage” Jackson.
In 2012, the World Series of Fighting was established. It lasted four years under that name before being sold and becoming the PFL. Under its new branding, it revived the tournament format, albeit now composed of a regular season and playoffs, before abolishing it for 2026.
Bellator and the PFL would merge in 2024, creating one of the biggest rosters of fighters ever assembled. Select crossover events world be held under the former’s banner, before it was decided to keep the latter’s moving forward.
For all their good intent, all those organizations simply lacked the finances and media exposure to compete with the UFC, leading to their downfall. The MVP-PFL merger, however, may change the game in two ways.
The first MVP-PFL transformation could come via media coverage. MVP has put its events on Netflix, aka the world’s most prominent streaming platform, and it has paid dividends. Ronda Rousey’s return vs. Gina Carano peaked at 17 million viewers — more than watched either UFC Freedom 250 or UFC 329 on Paramount+. If MVP-PFL can latch onto that, it could seriously improve the global viewership of MMA as a whole.
The second potential MVP-PFL reshaping is fighter pay. Despite its billion-dollar valuation, the UFC is said to be among the stingiest sports organizations when it comes to fighter pay. A standard contract starts at $10k/$10k — pitiable when compared to the nine-figure paydays athletes receive in other sports — and there is also no health insurance.
Meanwhile, Rousey and Carano each comfortably broke seven figures for a 17-second squash match – easily more than the average UFC Fight Night. Such paydays are unlikely to happen in the unified MVP-PFL, but six figures is an acceptable benchmark that could make Dana White question how he treats his fighters.
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Many are harshly criticizing the downfall in the UFC’s quality, so the MVP-PFL merger could not have come at a much better time.
The MVP-PFL consolidation will force burgeoning fighters to rethink their futures. Do they want the big paydays of the unified MVP-PFL, or the prestige of the UFC? Those may not be the only choices, however, as Coker is launching a new promotion in 2027, while the Global Fight League (GFL) plans to debut this October.
Following years of monopoly and monotony, MMA may be in for a new golden age, and MVP-PFL should be credited for it if it succeeds…
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