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Tomorrow marks the third year of The MMA Draw Substack.

Thank you to the thousands who have paid for subscriptions over that time and the tens of thousands who have read our work.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished as an independent and critical media outlet in the combat sports space.

Each UFC week, we publish our Friday fight predictions featuring expert analysis from Miguel Class, Blaine Henry, and Tim Bissell (and picks from Steph Haynes and Kristen King).

More importantly, over the last three years, we’ve brought you the work Zach Arnold and I have embarked on to reveal the key players that no one else in the media space will cover critically.

Stories like these:

• Big Law wants Big Bucks from UFC $375M antitrust settlement
  Lots of people are covering the settlement, but NO ONE else is keeping a critical eye on ALL of the players involved, including the plaintiff’s attorneys.

• Why UFC fans need to pay attention to WWE on Netflix
  Most media covers UFC or WWE and keeps their readers in the dark about one half of TKO’s business. We’re going to be expanding our WWE coverage so our readers will have some idea WTF is going on in both promotions.

• What Middle Eastern powers want from UFC, WWE, and boxing
  Unlike most in MMA media, we have the geopolitical understanding and economic awareness to comment intelligently on the big international takeover that’s currently happening in combat sports and we’re not afraid to call it like we see it.

• Ari Emanuel, Wrestling Billionaire
  Most importantly we’re the only ones foolhardy enough to call out the man behind the curtain at TKO and how he uses his immense power as Hollywood’s top talent representative and a big-time bipartisan political insider in the U.S. and a global player to put himself on virtually every side of every major negotiation whether it’s a media rights deal or a site fee negotiation.

• Monopoly money: UFC & WWE is morphing TKO into a government cartel
  When we warned that TKO was looking to dramatically increase the money it takes from national, state, and local governments, many were dismissive. We’ve been vindicated, this is about more than “just site fees” (which are ever expanding by the way) and it’s only the beginning of TKO’s big government money grab.

• An insider's deep dive on how UFC got California to sanction Power Slap
  No one else had both the sources and the willingness to report on one of the most shameful acts of government misregulation of sports in U.S. history. The California Athletic Commission attempted to cover up how and why they sanctioned Power Slap. Thanks to us, their shenanigans are a matter of public record.

I was deeply saddened when I was forced to sell Bloody Elbow due to Google’s infamous “Helpful Content Update” which cut off traffic to hundreds of independent websites, but I’m proud that we’ve managed to maintain our journalistic independence and one of the most important accomplishments of my MMA career: our work is read by the people who matter in the sport, whether they hate us or not.

As Jordan Breen said about Bloody Elbow in 2020:

I know for a fact that almost every person who makes a decision in this sport whether it's someone from the UFC, people who work for athletic commissions they read [Nate’s work] every day, every fucking day, and for me it feels like for me the last bastion of (combat sports) writing where people can just be honest.

We know from our subscriber list — and from the angry messages, we sometimes get in private — that the insiders in this sport read The MMA Draw every day, just like they read Bloody Elbow back in the day when it was under my editorial control.

If you want to keep up with the sport like the insiders do, or just improve your fight picks, The MMA Draw is the best of breed.

In 2025, we’re going to expand our content operations to include more podcasts, historical pieces, live chats, and full-scale analysis of all of TKO’s combat sports/entertainment businesses including WWE business.

TKO has a one-size-fits-all approach to conducting business, so it’s our responsibility to cover everything they do.

“Value-extraction” is their main concern and that means they are not investing in fighter/performer recruitment and development, they are not growing the sport of MMA, and they are not leaving the promotions they control in better shape than when they were acquired.

They make billions of dollars and someone has to step up to cover this global monster seriously and critically.

That’s what we do and we are proud to compare our work product against anyone else in the space.

You get what you pay for from The MMA Draw.

We’re here to show you where the money fans spend on UFC & WWE goes, why UFC & WWE shows are so expensive, and to give you data to make informed decisions about what events to support and which to pass on.

We are fight fans ourselves and have been for over thirty years. Unlike TKO management, we don’t look down on our fellow fight fans or fighters.

We are here to be their advocate and provide an inside look at what is happening with the combat sports world’s most powerful decision-makers.

That means we scour legal filings, and financial filings, spend hours talking to insiders, and do the work they used to call journalism.

Thank you for reading and for supporting The MMA Draw.

Best,

Nate Wilcox, Editor-in-Chief
The MMA Draw