Boxing’s self-described “disruptors” are heading across the Atlantic.
Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions, which boasts the biggest roster of women’s boxers in the world, will host their first UK show on Sunday in London [Sky Sports in the UK, 7 p.m. GMT, ESPN App in the U.S., 12 p.m. ET].
They aren’t doing it half-heartedly either.
The show will be headlined by two world title fights: Caroline Dubois vs. Terri Harper for the unified lightweight titles and Ellie Scotney taking on Mayelli Flores in the co-main event for the undisputed junior featherweight title.
Paul, with business partner and MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian, have made aggressive moves in the women’s boxing space over the last five years, signing up many of the best and brightest talent including several world champions.
They are also shaking up the MMA world, promoting the first ever card on Netflix headlined by Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano and a co-main that features Francis Ngannou on May 16. Paul, of course, attracts millions of eyeballs when he fights himself, having shared the ring with Tommy Fury, Mike Tyson and Anthony Joshua already in his relatively short but provocative professional career.
However, women’s boxing is the bread and butter of his promotional business and has been from the outset when they saw a gap in the market. In keeping with their disruptor mindset, Paul and Bidarian didn’t dip their toe in the water, they cannonballed straight into it.
Their first signing? Seven-weight world champion Amanda Serrano.
“We started this journey in 2021 and made Jake Paul’s first pay-per-view [vs. Tyrone Woodley] with Showtime have a co-main of Amanda Serrano. People thought we were crazy,” Bidarian tells ESPN before the broadcast deal with MVP was announced.
That, along with Serrano headlining her own shows, has been the blueprint: Stacking Paul’s undercards with their female fighters, showcasing them and their stories on huge platforms. They have signed up five of ESPN’s top 10 female boxers. The intent going forward is for more all-women cards on both sides of the Atlantic, with Alycia Baumgardner defending her unified junior lightweight titles in New York on April 17.
Bidarian — who is a businessman first and a self-titled “boxing novice” second — joined the UFC in 2011 before climbing the ladder to become their chief financial officer around the same time Rousey-mania exploded and took the sport to another level.
It gave him a glimpse into the potential of women’s combat sports.
“In 2015, Ronda Rousey was unequivocally, by any stat, the biggest fighter in the UFC — male or female. Bigger than Conor McGregor,” he explains. “Once we started MVP, Jake and I aligned on three things: Fighter first; giving young athletes an opportunity; but really … Getting behind women’s boxing. I had the conviction from the UFC days that this could work as a business.”
But out of everything, why women’s boxing?
“Eddie Hearn tells me all the time: ‘Why are you doing this?'” Bidarian says. “What we see others are either blind to or choose to be blind to. We see it very clearly.”
So far, the numbers back him up. While Hearn has helped build and promote arguably the biggest star in women’s boxing in Katie Taylor — working with Bidarian and Paul through Taylor’s trilogy with Serrano — MVP have gone all-in on women’s boxing in a way never seen before.
Taylor vs. Serrano in 2022 was watched by around 1.5 million viewers on DAZN, while the second fight was the co-main event on the Paul-Tyson undercard, which Netflix says was watched by 60 million. The trilogy, an historic all-female card which had a gate of over 19,000 at Madison Square Garden, attracted an audience of six million on Netflix.
When he speaks, Bidarian’s passion for women’s sports is evident. He spearheaded the $4 billion sale of the UFC to Endeavour (then WME-IMG) in 2016, and declared at the time it was the peak of his career. However, that was eclipsed by that record-breaking Taylor-Serrano III card at The Garden in July 2025.
It’s not just the biggest glamour fights with already established fighters MVP have chased. They have nurtured talent — like Yokasta Valle — and signed those they are confident can become future stars, such as Baumgardner. Bidarian worked to develop his relationship with Dubois over two years, meeting over dinners and discussing the role she could play in the future of women’s boxing.
The Brit signed with MVP in December 2025 and was quickly ushered onto the Paul-Joshua undercard in Miami that month.
“Every time I meet with them and discuss the future and discuss what’s next, it’s very positive,” Dubois tells ESPN.
“You need a positive guy, you don’t need a guy that’s like ‘I don’t know how it’s going to happen, I don’t know if we can put the money [up].’
“Every time he says: ‘Yes.’ Every time he says: ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do and if we can’t be this way, we’re going to make a way.’
“When Ronda Rousey came on the scene, she set the world alight. Forget male, female, she was the highest paid UFC athlete once upon a time. He saw a woman be able to do that and I think he [Bidarian] was taken in by that.”
But there’s a lot of work to be done. More disruption to unleash.
“I want to have an umbrella brand that represents the best fighters in the world that are female and you know you’re going to get championship fight after championship fight at the world level on a consistent basis,” Bidarian declares.
“It may take three years, it may take 10 years, but we’re going to get to a place where it’s its own powerful entity.”
