Ultimate Fighting Championship

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), based in Las Vegas, is an organization that promotes professional mixed martial arts (MMA) contests. It produces dozens of live events each year, and its pay-per-view cable television broadcasts and live streams have reached viewers in more than 160 countries. The UFC was founded in 1993 and purchased by Zuffa Inc. in January 2001 for $2 million, and boxing promoter and Las Vegas-based entrepreneur Dana White was named UFC president that same year. He soon became known as the face of the sport as it quickly expanded. In 2016 it was announced that the UFC was being sold to the talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME-IMG; now known as Endeavor) for $4 billion. In 2023 the UFC merged with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) under the umbrella of TKO Group Holdings, a publicly listed company, in a deal worth $21.4 billion.

Origin of UFC

The UFC was founded by businessman Art Davie, Brazilian martial artist Rorion Gracie, and executives of the Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), including Bob Meyrowitz, David Isaacs, and Campbell McLaren. The first edition of the competition, which came to be known as UFC 1, was held in 1993 in a caged ring at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver. It was broadcast on pay-per-view television by SEG. Rorion Gracie’s brother Royce Gracie participated in the tournament and emerged as the champion. As the UFC’s first cable television pay-per-view event, the tournament attracted 86,000 viewers. That number increased to 300,000 by the third event.

UFC expansion and reforms

The UFC initially marketed its product as a no-holds-barred sport in which anything could happen. It struggled to turn a profit in its early years, even though it grew in popularity. Davie and Gracie sold their stake in the organization after UFC 5 in 1995. Its brutality roused the ire of many, including such politicians as U.S. Sen. John McCain, who famously called caged combat “human cockfighting” and in the mid-1990s sought to have the sport banned across all U.S. states, with 36 states doing so.

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Dana White’s takeover

Dana White’s involvement with the UFC began when he started managing MMA fighters, most of whom fought under the UFC banner. White frequently found himself in conflict with the organization. In his search for a resolution, he discovered that UFC was on the verge of financial collapse. White told Forbes magazine in 2014:

I ended up finding that out, that they’re in trouble and they’re probably going to go out of business. And I’d been to a [UFC] event, and I was looking around and thinking, “Imagine if they did this, and imagine if they did that. This thing could actually be really big.”

Together with casino owners (and brothers) Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, whom White had first met while they were all students at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, he formed Zuffa Inc., and in 2001 the company purchased the UFC for $2 million. White became president and the effective face of the organization and of MMA.

At the time that White and the Fertitta brothers took over, the UFC was millions of dollars in debt, and its events were still banned in several U.S. states. Under White’s leadership, the company professionalized, adopting rules that made the sport less violent, and received official sanction from state regulatory bodies. In 2005 the reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter debuted, introducing a new audience to the sport. The show featured fighters looking to break into the UFC. Divided into teams under celebrity fighter coaches, combatants live under the same roof and fight each other in a knockout format, with the final winner earning a UFC contract. Starting in 2013 women also appeared on the show, both as coaches and as competitors.

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In 2006 the UFC moved to capitalize on the sport’s growing popularity by buying other MMA organizations, including the World Fighting Alliance (WFA) and World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC). In 2007 it also purchased the Japan-based Pride Fighting Championships (known as Pride). The UFC disbanded the WFA, acquiring top WFA fighters such as Quinton (“Rampage”) Jackson, but continued to operate the WEC as a distinct entity until 2010. The UFC had planned to have Pride and UFC champions meet annually in a so-called Super Bowl of mixed martial arts, but the Pride purchase proved to be problematic. Though Pride was ultimately also disbanded, the UFC did sign a number of its top fighters. By 2010 the UFC was selling an average of 587,000 pay-per-view tickets per event. MMA stars, notably Irish fighter Conor McGregor (who White signed to the UFC in 2013), became mainstream celebrities, further raising the UFC’s profile.

In 2016 the talent agency WME-IMG bought the UFC for $4 billion; White’s share as part owner was more than $300 million. He remained in his role as president until 2023, when the company merged with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and he was named CEO of the UFC.

The UFC continued to expand its audience in the 2020s. It benefited especially from the growing popularity of comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan, who has served as a commentator at UFC bouts since the late 1990s. The UFC also gained prominence through its association with U.S. Pres. Donald Trump and the broader MAGA movement. Trump was a longtime supporter of the organization and attended several UFC events while serving as president. In perhaps its highest profile spectacle ever, the UFC held a competition, UFC Freedom 250, on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14, 2026.

Notable UFC champions

Since its inception, the organization has seen many talented fighters, some of whom have become mainstream celebrities. These include:

• Royce Gracie of Brazil, who helped bring MMA to the forefront in the 1990s. A member of the influential Gracie family who had developed Brazilian jujitsu as a form of martial art, the 6-foot 1-inch (1.85-meter), 180-pound (82-kg) Gracie defeated all comers at UFC 1. In 2003 Gracie became the first fighter inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.
• Randy (“the Natural”) Couture and Chuck (“the Iceman”) Liddell, Americans and two of the sport’s biggest stars. Between 2003 and 2006, they had a trilogy of fights, at UFC 43, 52, and 57, that helped elevate MMA and the UFC. Couture won his first bout against Liddell in 2003 but lost two rematches, in 2005 and 2006. Couture was named to the UFC Hall of Fame in 2006, and Liddell was enshrined in 2009.
• Anderson Silva, a Brazilian fighter whose background included training in tae kwon do, Brazilian jujitsu, Muay Thai, and boxing. He won his 2006 UFC debut bout in 49 seconds. Silva captured the UFC middleweight championship later that same year and successfully defended the title 10 times before losing it to Chris Weidman in 2013.
• Rashad Evans, a successful alumnus of The Ultimate Fighter who emerged as the winner at the heavyweight level on the show. He went on to fight as a light heavyweight in the UFC, and in 2008 he defeated Forrest Griffin, another graduate of the show, to win the UFC light heavyweight title. Evans also earned notable victories over fellow UFC stars Quinton Jackson and Tito Ortiz.
• Conor McGregor, Irish fighter and one of the more successful MMA fighters in the lower weight divisions. He made his UFC debut in 2013 with a first-round technical knockout of Marcus Brimage and two years later won the UFC featherweight championship.
• Ronda Rousey, American professional mixed martial artist and wrestler. In 2012 she became the first woman fighter to sign up to compete in the UFC. She was also the first female UFC title-winner and defended her crown six times. In 2018 Rousey became the first woman to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.

UFC rules and regulations

The earliest aim of the UFC events was to pit fighters of different styles against each other—such as wrestler against boxer and kickboxer against judoka. Initially, the only rules decreed no biting and no eye gouging. Bouts ended when one fighter submitted or a corner threw in the towel.

By 2001 the new UFC management had codified a set of rules to make the sport less dangerous. These regulations added weight classes, rounds, and time limits and extended the list of fouls in the ring. The revamped UFC no longer featured mostly brawlers. Newer fighters were more skilled as boxers, wrestlers, and martial arts practitioners, and they were forced to train extensively and remain in peak condition to perform well. In the United States, the sport became regulated by the same bodies that governed boxing, including the Nevada State Athletic Commission and the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board. In 2007 McCain dropped his opposition to MMA, acknowledging that the “sport has made significant progress.”

The UFC was also instrumental in pushing for a set of rules to standardize the sport globally, and by 2009 regulatory bodies in the United States and many fighting promotions worldwide had adopted standards known as the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. Under these rules, MMA participants compete in a ring or a fenced area and fight with padded fingerless gloves; they do not wear shoes or headgear. They may strike, throw, kick, or grapple with an opponent, and attacks may be launched either from a standing position or on the ground. However, headbutting, gouging (thrusting a finger or thumb into an opponent’s eye), biting, hair pulling, and groin attacks of any kind are prohibited. Downward elbow strikes, throat strikes, and strikes to the spine or to the back of the head are also illegal, as are certain attacks against a grounded opponent, including kicking or kneeing the head. If a fighter violates a rule, the referee may issue a warning, deduct points, or—particularly when a flagrant foul is deemed to have been committed—disqualify the offending contestant.

Other MMA organizations

In addition to the UFC, there are numerous other professional MMA organizations. Among the most prominent of these are the Newport Beach, California-based Bellator MMA, founded in 2008, and the Singapore-based ONE Championship, which promotes many of Asia’s top MMA fighters. Invicta Fighting Championships, a promotion dedicated to female MMA fighters, was launched in the United States in 2012.

The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) was founded in 2012 in Sweden to advance the sport and serve as the global governing body for amateur MMA. IMMAF members include more than 40 national MMA federations. The IMMAF annually sponsors the World Championships of Amateur MMA and maintains an amateur MMA world-ranking list.

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