Ultimate Fighting Championship

In 1993, Art Davie and Rorion Gracie launched the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) with a novel question: which martial art is the most effective? The first event was a tournament pitting different fighting styles against each other with minimal rules. While it captured attention, the company, then owned by Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), struggled financially and faced intense regulatory pressure. The company's trajectory changed in 2001. On the brink of bankruptcy, SEG sold the UFC for $2 million to casino executives Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who, along with their business partner Dana White, formed Zuffa, LLC to run the promotion. This new ownership team secured sanctioning, introduced weight classes, and refined the rules, transforming the spectacle into a legitimate sport. A major turning point was the reality show *The Ultimate Fighter* in 2005, which created a new generation of fans and catapulted the UFC into the mainstream. This success led to a landmark acquisition in 2016 when the parent company, Zuffa, was sold to an Endeavor-led group for approximately $4 billion. In 2023, Endeavor merged the UFC with WWE to form TKO Group Holdings, a new publicly traded sports and entertainment giant, solidifying its place as a global combat sports leader.