Most Valuable Promotions — the company headed up by Jake Paul and former UFC executive Nakisa Bidarian — is jumping into the deep end of the MMA pool with a megacard planned for May 16 with Ronda Rousey making her return to action against Gina Carano in the main event.
The card airs on Netflix, which is by far the biggest streaming platform in the world with over 325 million subscribers, so there’s a good chance Rousey vs. Carano could become the most watched MMA event of all-time. Beyond the main
event, MVP also booked former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou against Philipe Lins while Mike Perry takes on Nate Diaz in a matchup almost guaranteed to produce fireworks.
While MVP’s primary focus to this point has been promoting boxing, the potential success of the Rousey vs. Carano card could keep Paul and Bidarian investing in MMA for the foreseeable future.
“I think a lot of it depends on May 16th, right?” Bidarian told Sports Business Journal “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 producing Paul’s fight against Mike Tyson, which peaked with more than 100 million viewers on Netflix, MVP’s move into MMA comes with similar potential impact with Rousey returning to fight again for the first time in 10 years. The same goes for Carano, who has been focused on acting with her last fight coming all the way back in 2009 when she fell to Cris Cyborg in Strikeforce.
While Rousey vs. Carano could produce monster numbers for Netflix, Bidarian recognizes that MVP isn’t going to directly compete with a powerhouse like the UFC because that company maintains a roster featuring several hundred fighters with events taking place almost every single weekend.
MVP’s plans for MMA revolve more around the big, marquee events like Rousey vs. Carano that the promotion is now calling “blockbuster live events” or BLE’s.
Bidarian credits Netflix as a huge part of puzzle when it came time to promote Rousey vs. Carano and he hopes that partnership could continue in the future. Netflix has already aired several MVP events including Paul vs. Tyson and Paul vs. Anthony Joshua.
“[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.”
Obviously a lot of MVP’s future plans for MMA depend on Rousey vs. Carano paying off but Bidarian is confident that is going to happen.
“This to me is a crossover mainstream event,” Bidarian said. “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.”
