Jake Paul‘s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) and Netflix will roll out their first mixed martial arts event this weekend.
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey returns to the cage after nearly a decade to take on fellow women’s MMA pioneer Gina Carano in the aptly named Rousey vs. Carano main event at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
Advertisement
MVP has been a boxing promotion since its creation five years ago, but Paul looks at the MMA landscape and sees an opportunity.
“I think we’re pretty agnostic in terms of it being MMA or boxing. At the end of the day, we love combat sports and we’re great promoters and we have a great relationship with our partners at Netflix as well as other platforms. But we’ve always wanted to make MMA fights happen,” Paul said on The Ariel Helwani Show.
“It’s always been in our minds. And I think is ripe for disruption, maybe even more than boxing is currently.”
With MVP and Netflix entering MMA promotion, it puts them in direct completion with the UFC streaming on Paramount+. Paul believes the UFC fails to recognize what fans want.
Advertisement
“I think there’s a lot of weird things happening over at that organization … They’ve sort of lost touch with the pulse of their fans and making the fights that people want to see,” said Paul.
“I think fans are starting to not be as happy with the way things are run and the fights that are being made, the cards that are being put together. So yeah, just hearing the people speak. And obviously I don’t know anything that goes on behind the scenes, but you can kind of feel that as well,” he continued.
“Like, I’m a fan of the UFC. I have been since I was, you know, 12 or 13 years-old. And I’ve also noticed a difference just in the organization. It’s hard to say what it is, but it just doesn’t have as much hype anymore.”
