Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions is set to hold their first MMA card on May 16th, and have said they have longterm plans for the sport. That’s seemingly confirmed by a new report that MVP is working on what sounds suspiciously like a new take on ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’
Before it was run into the ground over 33 seasons, The Ultimate Fighter reality show literally saved the sport of MMA in North America. As the ol’ story goes, the 2005 series finale fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar went viral on SpikeTV, with viewership numbers doubling from 1.5 million to 3 million over the course of the bout. Those ‘TUF noobs’ liked what they saw and started buying hundreds of thousands of pay-per-views, leading to the golden age of UFC.
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The Ultimate Fighter is up there with Survivor as a textbook example of the power of reality TV. So it shouldn’t be surprising that many MMA reality shows have come and gone over the years, including an insane Russian TUF clone that featured Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier disarming contestants with knives. Now MVP is reportedly preparing their own play on the format, according to respected Japanese MMA agent and manager Shu Hirata.
“A former TUF staffer has been poached by MVP, and now he’s been assigned to the MMA reality show that MVP is producing next,” Hirata tweeted in Japanese. “So, for the guys: from lightweight to light heavyweight; for the women: from atomweight to featherweight, 18 and up … The broadcast will be on a major platform, apparently.”
“Well, my prediction is that it’s basically going to be a show to rival TUF,” Hirata concluded. “This might not necessarily be about Netflix as the platform? The MVP women’s boxing event airs on ESPN, so I’m thinking it could be ESPN too. Either way, I figure it’s shaping up to be MVP / Netflix / ESPN vs UFC / Paramount+.”
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MVP heads Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian (who used to be the Chief Financial Officer for UFC before Endeavor bought it) have said the MMA space was ripe for disruption, but many have pointed to a lack of stars outside the UFC as a stumbling point for any sustained competition. With their own TUF show, MVP may be trying to quickly generate some new stars from the ground up. Not the kind of move you make if you’re only throwing a one-off MMA event before returning to boxing when Jake Paul recovers from his broken jaw.
We’ll keep you updated as news of this MVP MMA reality show develops.
