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By Michael Gallagher
Sports Content Coordinator
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When Jake Paul announced that his Most Valuable Promotions company had merged with the Professional Fighters League to form MVP MMA, he immediately sent a warning to UFC president Dana White that the UFC’s reign as the kingpin of MMA was coming to an end.
Most true fight fans don’t believe that for a minute, but given Paul’s celebrity status and deep pockets, he can at least make the MMA world a little more interesting with possibly luring some big-name talent away from the UFC with lucrative pay days.
But is Paul’s new MMA company an actual threat to the UFC? White doesn’t seem to think so. During an appearance on “The Mac Life,” White revealed that he’s not concerned whatsoever about the MVP-PFL merger.
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“Listen, I said this 100 times, and I’m just [expletive] around… I don’t look at any of those guys as our competition,” White stated. “We’re in a whole other [expletive] stratosphere now. I mean, I’m competing with all the majors. Those guys aren’t my competition. So good luck to them all. I wish them all the best.”
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The UFC has been in a similar position before.
Both Strikeforce and Bellator were positioned as competition for the UFC, and both companies had legitimate talent on their respective rosters — Nick Diaz, Cyborg Santos, Ronda Rousey, Jake Shields, Dan Henderson, Eddie Alvarez, Michael Chandler, Patricio Pitbull, and Ben Askren to name a few.
And while MVP had some notable fighters on its first MMA card earlier this year —Rousey, Gina Carano, Francis Ngannou, Nate Diaz, and Mike Perry — the company doesn’t have the kind of roster to pose much of a threat right now.
Unless MVP MMA can lure a big name away from the UFC like Jon Jones or Conor McGregor, the company has a long way to go before even being considered a legit contender in the MMA world.
“I don’t know anything about what they’re doing,” White added. “It probably makes sense. When [expletive] isn’t working for anybody, we should probably get together. Let’s take two organizations that don’t sell tickets and nobody watches and let’s merge them together and make a bigger company that we won’t sell tickets to and that nobody will watch.”
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