After announcing their first MMA event seemingly out of nowhere, MVP and Netflix are beating the UFC at their own game.
On Monday, Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry, as fun of a fight as you can get inside or outside of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, joined this year’s splashiest card. No, not “Freedom 250” (UFC White House is actually a better name), the UFC’s latest attempt to cash in off their relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, and Trump’s grand foray into sportwashing.
Rather, the fighter many hoped might return to the UFC in the near future, Diaz, will fight Perry, BKFC’s “King of Violence,” on the undercard of Most Valuable Promotion’s Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano tentpole on Netflix.
It’s spectacle, without question. But (and this is coming from someone who has always championed sport over spectacle), shouldn’t the White House card have been all about spectacle? Shouldn’t it have been an over-the-top extravaganza, rankings and relevance be damned?
Diaz-Perry is the sort of announcement you had hoped to hear when UFC CEO and President Dana White, looking concerningly run down these days (and who can blame him, with four promotions on the go between the UFC, UFC BJJ, Zuffa Boxing, and the freakshow that is PowerSlap), promised to reveal the much ballyhooed White House card during UFC 326 earlier this month.
Reveal it he did, with the card overshadowing the lackluster UFC 326 in Las Vegas itself. And when the big reveal did come, after two hours of build-up on CBS, it arrived with a whimper. None of the big names fight fans had hoped for, including Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, and yes even Nate Diaz were present. Instead, the UFC revealed what amounted to a very good numbered event— but not the sort of line-up that came anywhere close to meeting expectations.
Look, when Donald Trump came out and said there would be eight or nine title fights on the White House card, no one should have believed him. That was Trump being Trump, wielding hyperbole the way a hyperactive eight-year-old wields a Super Soaker. White, however, didn’t help himself when he claimed, as recently as January, that he expected to White House card to be “the biggest event ever done. By a long shot.”
Biggest event? Six fights, with Bo Nickal fighting Kyle Daukaus, who is a solid fighter catching undeserved strays thanks to extraordinarily uninspired matchmaking? That’s your biggest even ever done?
The biggest surprise to come from the White House announcement two Saturday’s ago, however, aside from how pedestrian it turned out to be, was Alex Pereira moving to heavyweight. Only, that wasn’t even a surprise: Dana White had already announced that Pereira was vacating his light heavyweight title. A former middleweight champ, everyone who follows fighting was already aware that “Poatan” had his sights set on heavyweight.
The only surprise in Pereira’s move up, in fact, was that he was fighting Ciryl Gane, a bout no one asked for, rather than Jon Jones.
The face of the UFC has been steadfast in denying that Jones was ever going to fight on the White House card, yet the champ himself insists he was in negotiations, and even White was forced to admit that the UFC was talking to him of late. If not to fight on the White House card, then what for? Jones had literally walked away from MMA last year only to make an about-face, and return to the drug testing pool simply for a shot at representing his country and fighting on the White House grounds.
Why would the UFC bother talking to Jones otherwise? He’d already chased a fight with Pereira, favoring the match-up over one featuring current heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall.
Jones or no Jones, the UFC’s White House announcement lacked sizzle. It was met with yawns from fans. Longtime MMA media member Ariel Helwani was kind enough to rank it a nine out of ten, high praise given the relationship he’s had with White over the years. But let’s be honest: Freedom 250 is an eight at best, and that’s under normal circumstances. With the sort of expectations associated with being the first-ever professional sporting even held on the White House grounds, it’s a seven, and even that is being generous.
MVP, meanwhile, announced Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano to considerable fanfare prior to the UFC’s White House announcement. Yes, there were critics. Rightfully so. Rousey hasn’t fought since 2016. Carano hasn’t fought since 2009. Set to air on Netflix, however, a streaming service many already have, it’s hard to really bemoan the booking too much. Yes, UFC cards are essentially “free” to subscribers of Paramount+, but that service is in far fewer homes. Still a great deal for UFC fans, zero question, but catching the White House card is an extra monthly subscription for many casual fans who might be curious about it.
Rousey-Carano? A good chunk of casual fans probably already have Netflix.
Then came the Francis Ngannou announcement. While he’s fighting former PFL star and UFC heavyweight Philipe Lins, not a bigger name as might have been hoped, Ngannou remains a huge addition to the Netflix show. He’s the lineal heavyweight champion in MMA. He remains at the top of his game. He left the UFC, essentially winning a battle with White, and tried his hand at boxing.
Ngannou might have lost, but he won so much financially (and looked so good against Tyson Fury that he arguably won that bout) that it doesn’t matter. And he’s won again here, leaving a go-nowhere situation in the PFL, who simply don’t have the roster, or funds, to schedule him consistently, for another lucrative payday.
The Netflix Rousey vs. Carano kick-off press conference last week was a huge newsmaker. Rousey went on the offensive, telling fans to expect change. Taking on the UFC head on. This was a former promotional darling, a company woman through and through. And while she has paid her respects to White, she has also questioned how in control of the promotion he truly is. She’s singled out Hunter Campbell, the UFC’s Chief Business Officer and heir apparent to White. She said what many fans have been thinking: the UFC simply doesn’t book the best fights anymore. They just book cost-effective ones.
Rousey even let slip that the UFC had booked her fight with Carano, and gave her the best deal of her career, only to withdraw it after the promotion signed a new, $7.7 billion dollar broadcast deal with Paramount+. Pay-Per-View was gone as a result, and Rousey is of the belief that the company no longer wants to offer big money for big name fighters, since they can’t base pay on performance like they used to by employing Pay-Per-View points (bonus money paid to top stars based on how well a PPV sells).
Jake Paul’s MVP and Netflix have now seized the opportunity. And Diaz vs. Perry, announced earlier today, is exactly the sort of fight that should have been booked for the UFC’s White House show. When you’re promising the biggest event of all time, it can’t just be about hardcore fans. It can’t just be about rankings. Casual fans know Rousey, Diaz, and to a lesser extent Ngannou and Perry. They might know Justin Gaethje, and his particular brand of carnage. They might know Poatan. Diego Lopes vs. Steve Garcia? What on earth is that fight doing on what was supposed to be the biggest event ever, per Dana White’s own words?
MVP clearly knows how to generate a buzz too. While the UFC unceremoniously dumped the entire Freedom 250 card out during UFC 326, MVP and Netflix and drip-fed the media and fans three big fights: first Rousey-Carano, then Ngannou-Lins, now Diaz-Perry. Rousey, Ngannou, and Diaz are all bigger names than anyone fighting on the White House grounds this June. Are they relevant to their respective divisions these days? No, with the exception of Ngannou.
And that won’t matter one bit at the end of the day. These sorts of cards aren’t about divisional relevance.
The UFC used to know that. That’s why they booked Brock Lesnar to return at UFC 200. “Can you hear me now?!?” still resonates among fight fans. It doesn’t matter that Lesnar’s win against Mark Hunt was later overturned to a No Contest. It doesn’t matter that Lesnar’s failed drug test spiraled into a lawsuit between Hunt and the UFC. That return announcement is still one of the biggest surprises that UFC has ever pulled off (and no, Helwani breaking the news a little early didn’t ruin it for anyone).
The promotion used to understand how to hype fans up for an event like this. UFC 100, UFC 200, the Noche UFC card at The Sphere. As much as the UFC brass often shows disdain towards the theatrical, they’ve pulled it off when need be. Yet these days, they send Fight Night events like Emmett vs. Vallejos (which vastly exceeded expectations) to the newly re-branded Meta Apex to die.
This isn’t meant to just drag the UFC. They have the deepest talent pool, and the most relevant fights nine times out of ten. It’s indisputable, however, that the White House card has been a letdown in terms of expectations versus reality. And watching MVP beat them so soundly at their own game may just be a sign of Rousey’s promise of change being on the horizon.