The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in the Las Vegas, Nevada, area. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, itself a majority owned subsidiary of the WME Group. The largest MMA promotion in the world, the UFC has over 578 fighters contracted that fight across 11 weight divisions (eight men's and three women's). The organization produces events worldwide and abides by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. , it had held over 750 events. Dana White has been its president since 2001 and CEO since 2023. Under White's stewardship, it has grown into a global multi-billion-dollar enterprise.
The UFC was founded by businessman Art Davie, martial artist Rorion Gracie, and film director John Milius, with the backing of Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG) CEO Bob Meyrowitz, President David Isaacs, and Head of Programming Campbell McLaren. The first event was held in 1993 at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of the UFC's early competitions was to identify the most effective martial art in a contest with minimal rules and no weight classes between competitors of different fighting disciplines. In subsequent events, more rigorous rules were created and fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create a separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.
The UFC was initially owned by SEG until it developed financial problems and was sold to the brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta in 2001, who formed the company Zuffa to operate the UFC, and placed Dana White as the president of the company. In 2016, UFC's parent company, Zuffa, was sold to a group led by Endeavor, then known as William Morris Endeavor (WME–IMG), including Silver Lake Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and MSD Capital for US$4.025 billion. In 2021, Endeavor bought out Zuffa's other owners for $1.7 billion.
With a TV deal and expansion in Australia, Asia, Europe, and new markets within the United States, the UFC has achieved greater mainstream media coverage. It earned US$609 million in 2015, and its previous domestic media rights agreement with ESPN was valued at $1.5 billion over a five-year term. The UFC has also purchased and absorbed rival organizations such as PRIDE Fighting Championships, World Extreme Cagefighting, and Strikeforce, consolidating much of the global MMA market under its banner.
In April 2023, Endeavor Group Holdings announced that UFC would merge with the wrestling promotion WWE to form TKO Group Holdings, a new public company majority-owned by Endeavor, with Vince McMahon serving as an executive chairman of the new entity and White remaining as UFC president. The merger was completed on September 12, 2023. In January 2024, McMahon had ended his ties with the company amid a sex trafficking scandal. In 2025, the UFC signed a 7-year, US$7.7 billion deal with Paramount Skydance (operators of CBS Sports and Paramount+) beginning the next year, exiting the pay-per-view business entirely.
History
Early 1990s competition
Art Davie proposed to John Milius and Rorion Gracie an eight-man single-elimination tournament called "War of the Worlds". It was inspired by the "Gracies in Action" video-series produced by the Gracie family of Brazil which featured Gracie jiu-jitsu students defeating martial artists of various disciplines such as karate, kung fu, and kickboxing on Vale Tudo matches. The tournament would also feature martial artists from different disciplines facing each other in no-holds-barred combat to determine the best martial art, and would aim to replicate the excitement of the matches Davie saw on the videos.Gentry III, Clyde, No Holds Barred: Ultimate Fighting and the Martial Arts Revolution, Milo Books, 2003, paperback edition, , pp. 38–39. Gracie accepted, as he was interested in showcasing and promoting his family's own jiu-jitsu for a wide audience. Milius, a film director/screenwriter and Gracie student, agreed to be the event's creative director. Davie drafted the business plan, and 28 investors contributed the initial capital to start WOW Promotions to develop the tournament into a television franchise.Gentry III, Clyde, No Holds Barred: Evolution, Archon Publishing, 2001, 1st ed., , pages 24–29.
In 1993, WOW Promotions sought a television partner and approached pay-per-view producers TVKO (HBO) and SET (Showtime), and Campbell McLaren and David Isaacs at Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). Both TVKO and SET declined, but SEG—a pioneer in pay-per-view television that had produced such offbeat events as a tennis match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova—became WOW's partner in May 1993.Gentry III, Clyde, No Holds Barred: Evolution, Archon Publishing, 2001, 1st ed., , page 41 UFC promoters initially pitched the event as a real-life fighting video game tournament similar to Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. SEG contacted video and film art director Jason Cusson to design a fighting arena for the event. Rorion and Davie didn't want a traditional roped ring, citing fears—by showing old Vale Tudo footage—that the fighters could escape through the ropes during grappling and use it as an advantage, or fall off and hurt themselves. SEG's executives agreed, and also wanted a way to visually differentiate their event from professional boxing and professional wrestling. Some ideas included a traditional roped-ring surrounded by netting, a moat with alligators, a raised platform surrounded by razor-wire fence, electrified fencing, men in togas and netting that could be lowered from the ceiling by a pulley. Eventually Cusson designed an arena with eight sides surrounded by chain-link fence, the trademarked Octagon, which became the event's signature setting. Cusson remained the group's production designer through UFC 27. SEG devised the show's name as "The Ultimate Fighting Championship".Gentry III, Clyde, No Holds Barred: Evolution, Archon Publishing, 2001, 1st Edition, , page 29
WOW Promotions and SEG produced the first event, later retroactively called UFC 1, at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado on November 12, 1993. Art Davie was its booker and matchmaker.Newport, John Paul, "Blood Sport", Details, March 1995, pages 70–72. It proposed to find answers for sports fans' questions such as, "Can a wrestler beat a boxer?"Willoughby, David P., The Super Athletes, A.S. Barnes & Co., Inc., 1970, , page 380. As with most martial arts at the time, fighters typically had skills in just one discipline and little experience against opponents with differing skills.Gentry, Clyde, No Holds Barred: Ultimate Fighting and the Martial Arts Revolution, (Milo Books: Preston, 2005), p.73 The television broadcast featured kickboxer Kevin Rosier, taekwondo practitioner Patrick Smith, savate fighter Gerard Gordeau, karate expert Zane Frazier, shootfighter Ken Shamrock, sumo wrestler Teila Tuli, boxer Art Jimmerson, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Royce Gracie—younger brother of UFC co-founder Rorion, whom Rorion selected to represent his family. Royce's submission skills proved the most effective in the inaugural tournament, earning him the first ever UFC tournament championship after submitting Jimmerson, Shamrock, and Gordeau in succession. The show was extremely successful, with 86,592 pay-per-view television subscribers.
It's disputed whether the promoters intended the event to be a precursor to future events. "That show was only supposed to be a one-off", eventual UFC president Dana White said. "It did so well on pay-per-view they decided to do another, and another. Never in a million years did these guys think they were creating a sport." Davie, in his 2014 book Is This Legal?, an account of the creation of the first UFC event, disputes the perception that the UFC was seen by WOW Promotions and SEG as a one-off, since SEG offered a five-year joint development deal to WOW. He says, "Clearly, both Campbell and Meyrowitz shared my unwavering belief that War of the Worlds would be a continuing series of fighting tournaments—a franchise, rather than a one-night stand."
With no weight classes, fighters often faced significantly larger or taller opponents. Keith "The Giant Killer" Hackney faced Emmanuel Yarbrough at UFC 3 with a 9-inch height and weight disadvantage.Fight card for UFC 3 , Sherdog.com. Fighter profile for Keith Hackney, Sherdog.com. Fighter profile for Emmanuel Yarborough, Sherdog.com. Last retrieved December 5, 2006
During this early phase of the organization, the UFC showcased a bevy of styles and fighters. Aside from the aforementioned Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Patrick Smith, they also featured competitors such as Hall of Famer Dan Severn, Marco Ruas, Gary Goodridge, Don Frye, Kimo Leopoldo, Oleg Taktarov, and Tank Abbott.
Evolution of the rules and format Although UFC used the tagline "There are no rules" in the early 1990s, the UFC did in fact operate with limited rules. In a UFC 4 qualifying match, competitors Jason Fairn and Guy Mezger agreed not to pull hair—as they both wore pony tails tied back for the match. The UFC had a reputation, especially in the early days, as an extremely violent event.
UFC 5 also introduced the first singles match, a rematch from the inaugural UFC featuring three-time champion Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, called "The Superfight". Gracie and Shamrock developed a rivalry after UFC 1 and were the biggest starts of early UFC, but the tournament format proved unreliable to match both competitors. "The Superfight" began as a non-tournament match that would determine the first reigning UFC Champion for tournament winners to face; it later evolved into a match that could feature either title matches or non-title matches.
Despite the introduction of the "Superfight", the UFC continued to use one-night tournaments intermittently. UFC 9 was the first event to feature exclusively singles bouts, before the return of tournament in the next events. UFC 12 in 1997 introduced two weight categories: heavyweight and lightweight, marking the beginning of the UFC's transition from its original openweight format. The lightweight division was later divided into middleweight and welterweight, while the heavyweight division was divided into heavyweight and light heavyweight. UFC 17 in 1998 was the last event to feature a tournament, with UFC Brazil: Ultimate Brazil onwards featuring only singles bouts. The format was briefly revived for UFC 23: Ultimate Japan 2 in 1999, which was ultimately the final UFC event to feature a one-night tournament, after which the tournament format was discontinued in favor of individual bouts and championship matches. The tournament format was later used on two occasions to determine champions for vacant divisional titles. In 2003, the UFC held a lightweight tournament following the vacancy of the UFC Lightweight Championship and in 2012, the format was used again for the newly established flyweight division, with a tournament held to determine the inaugural UFC Flyweight Champion. However, these tournaments were held across multiple events rather than as one-night tournaments, and the UFC continued to use individual bouts and championship matches as its standard format.