If its debut occasion in combined martial arts goes properly subsequent month, Most Valuable Promotions plans to make a long-term move into that type of fight sports activities, in accordance to firm co-founder Nakisa Bidarian.
The boxing promotion is getting into MMA for the primary time with a May 16 present at Intuit Dome in Inglewood that may air on Netflix and be headlined by former UFC fighters Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano. MVP co-founder Jake Paul has had one thing of a disagreement with UFC President & CEO Dana White, and their rivalry seems to be headed to one other degree with MVP coming into MMA.
MVP has but to announce any official, broader plans in MMA, nevertheless it may make a bigger play, in accordance to Bidarian.
“I think a lot of it depends on May 16th, right?” Bidarian informed SBJ in a cellphone interview final week. “We’re putting a lot of fire power, star power, distribution to the event. If it works, and I’m very confident it will work, yes — MVP will be involved in MMA over the long term.”
After first partnering on the Paul-Mike Tyson boxing occasion in 2024, MVP has change into one thing of a dealer for Netflix within the combating trade and is now coming into its fourth promotion with the world’s largest digital streaming service by subscriptions.
Bidarian has expertise in MMA: He is a former chief monetary officer of class chief UFC, and he and White have additionally traded barbs lately. Bidarian mentioned the Netflix MMA card fell into MVP’s lap after UFC handed on the chance to put collectively the Rousey-Carano battle.
“Ronda reached out and said, ‘We see what you’ve done on the women’s boxing side, would you be interested?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely, I would love to be if Netflix would be interested in this as well,’” Bidarian mentioned. “And I think Netflix right away recognized that this is more than just MMA. This is a mainstream cultural event.”
SOCIAL STAR: Bidarian mentioned his evaluation of Google Trends information confirmed that Rousey’s fights had essentially the most search curiosity of any fighter in UFC historical past, including that the one time Conor McGregor beat a Rousey battle was when he did an exhibition boxing match towards Floyd Mayweather. He mentioned MVP is now calling these huge reveals “blockbuster live events,” or BLEs, which seems to be a twist on the time period TKO Group Holdings makes use of for WWE’s largest reveals, premium stay occasions (PLEs).
Other notable names on the Netflix card embody former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and former UFC star Nate Diaz.
MVP wouldn’t essentially try to match UFC occasion for occasion. UFC has a whole bunch of fighters below contract and places on a number of reveals a month all yr lengthy; MVP would most likely be extra selective about how usually it held occasions in MMA. Bidarian mentioned MVP hasn’t talked to every other broadcasters about working collectively on an MMA card.
“[Netflix is] really a difference maker in being able to stand up a product that can be viewed as top-tier distribution and exposure for the athletes, so May 16th will be tell-tale in terms of what’s possible,” Bidarian mentioned. “I’m confident that we will have one of the, if not the most viewed, MMA event in history, just like I was confident that Paul-Tyson would break streaming records in the U.S. versus any form of content.
“And on the back of that, we look forward to sitting down with Netflix or other distributors and seeing what the MMA strategy is for us going forward. But we’ve had no shortage of interested athletes reaching out to us to be involved.”
According to Netflix, the Paul-Tyson fight had 48.9 million views in the U.S. alone, drawing an viewers on par with the platform’s finest scripted TV reveals in 2025 and properly above what it acquired for NFL Christmas Day video games that yr.
THE COMPETITORS: Other firms within the martial arts area embody PFL and a few international gamers like One Championship, the Rizin Fighting Federation and Poland-based KSW. UFC and TKO have additionally expanded their fight portfolio with the launch of Zuffa Boxing. Bidarian declined to disclose whether or not MVP’s cope with Netflix is for a number of fights or years or is on an event-by-event foundation.
Said Bidarian: “This to me is a crossover mainstream event … and for us to be able to add the caliber of star power, plus true top-tier current contenders … it’s a great card that we’re proud of and we think we’ll be very successful come Saturday, May 16th.”
