If its debut event in mixed martial arts goes well next month, Most Valuable Promotions plans to make a long-term move into that form of combat sports, according to company co-founder Nakisa Bidarian.
The boxing promotion is getting into MMA for the first time with a May 16 show at Intuit Dome in Inglewood that will air on Netflix and be headlined by former UFC fighters Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano. MVP co-founder Jake Paul has had something of a war of words with UFC President & CEO Dana White, and their rivalry appears to be headed to another level with MVP entering MMA.
MVP has yet to announce any official, broader plans in MMA, but it could make a bigger play, according to Bidarian.
“I think a lot of it depends on May 16th, right?” Bidarian told SBJ in a phone interview last week. “We’re putting a lot of fire power, star power, distribution to the event. If it works, and I’m very confident it will work, yes — MVP will be involved in MMA over the long term.”
After first partnering on the Paul-Mike Tyson boxing event in 2024, MVP has become something of a broker for Netflix in the fighting industry and is now entering its fourth promotion with the world’s largest digital streaming service by subscriptions.
Bidarian has experience in MMA: He is a former chief financial officer of category leader UFC, and he and White have also traded barbs in recent years. Bidarian said the Netflix MMA card fell into MVP’s lap after UFC passed on the opportunity to put together the Rousey-Carano fight.
“Ronda reached out and said, ‘We see what you’ve done on the women’s boxing side, would you be interested?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely, I would love to be if Netflix would be interested in this as well,’” Bidarian said. “And I think Netflix right away recognized that this is more than just MMA. This is a mainstream cultural event.”
SOCIAL STAR: Bidarian said his review of Google Trends data showed that Rousey’s fights had the most search interest of any fighter in UFC history, adding that the one time Conor McGregor beat a Rousey fight was when he did an exhibition boxing match against Floyd Mayweather. He said MVP is now calling these big shows “blockbuster live events,” or BLEs, which appears to be a twist on the term TKO Group Holdings uses for WWE’s biggest shows, premium live events (PLEs).
Other notable names on the Netflix card include former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and former UFC star Nate Diaz.
MVP wouldn’t necessarily attempt to match UFC event for event. UFC has hundreds of fighters under contract and puts on several shows a month all year long; MVP would probably be more selective about how often it held events in MMA. Bidarian said MVP hasn’t talked to any other broadcasters about working together on an MMA card.
“[Netflix is] really a difference maker in being able to stand up a product that can be viewed as top-tier distribution and exposure for the athletes, so May 16th will be tell-tale in terms of what’s possible,” Bidarian said. “I’m confident that we will have one of the, if not the most viewed, MMA event in history, just like I was confident that Paul-Tyson would break streaming records in the U.S. versus any form of content.
“And on the back of that, we look forward to sitting down with Netflix or other distributors and seeing what the MMA strategy is for us going forward. But we’ve had no shortage of interested athletes reaching out to us to be involved.”
According to Netflix, the Paul-Tyson fight had 48.9 million views in the U.S. alone, drawing an audience on par with the platform’s best scripted TV shows in 2025 and well above what it received for NFL Christmas Day games that year.
THE COMPETITORS: Other companies in the martial arts space include PFL and some foreign players like One Championship, the Rizin Fighting Federation and Poland-based KSW. UFC and TKO have also expanded their combat portfolio with the launch of Zuffa Boxing. Bidarian declined to disclose whether MVP’s deal with Netflix is for multiple fights or years or is on an event-by-event basis.
Said Bidarian: “This to me is a crossover mainstream event … and for us to be able to add the caliber of star power, plus true top-tier current contenders … it’s a great card that we’re proud of and we think we’ll be very successful come Saturday, May 16th.”
