You no longer matter to fight promoters. What happened?

A hustler's race to copy UFC & WWE is a formula for death.

How did this happen?

You ever notice that any time there’s some media interview with a wannabe UFC competitor or player that, when it comes time to sell you on their concept, they never seem to want to talk to you directly?

Maybe it’s just me, but one of the reasons why so many non-UFC players in MMA or fight sports never seem to gain traction is because these promoters-in-name-only aren’t actually selling us any fights or fighters. Interview after interview, whether it’s Donn Davis and PFL or Darren Owen and GFL or Chatri and ONE, there always seems to be a pattern.

Here’s what we are all missing: we’re not their audience.

Wait, what?

That’s right. We, as fight fans and people who spend money on this incessantly frustrating hobby and sport, are not the target audience of the non-TKO players.

How the hell do you build a business if you have no customers?

Apparently, the future Dana Whites of combat sports only have certain customers in mind: really rich people and politicians in charge of wealthy governments.

How did we get to this point?

We got to this point because hustlers who want to make some coin in combat sports see a $30 billion market cap with TKO (UFC + WWE) and think that the only way to make a quick buck is to sell a bunch of rich people a concept entirely based on process and not substance.

In law or business, you can either sell process or substance. If you’re really good, you can sell both.

Donn Davis is the master of a sales pitch that involves purely process, as if it’s some sort of basic algebraic equation. We’ll focus on his antics later in this article.

The latest flavor du jour is Darren Owen, a former World Series of Fighting suit who is pitching a team-based GFL concept involving fighters in their late 30s or mid-40s. Some of these GFL fighters recently submitted declarations (under penalty of perjury) in the Federal UFC antitrust lawsuit claiming that they are suffering from medical disabilities — like traumatic brain injury — and need settlement money.

And now these damaged fighters will be part of a harebrained franchising scheme in which the multi-millionaire in your life, who wants to be a billionaire someday, can own a GFL “team” for a low, low price of “tens of millions of dollars”?

Let’s listen to Mr. Owen make his sales pitch on a recent Brendan Schaub podcast:

"We don't have a crazy Board of Executives that are getting, you know... Our monthly burn [rate] is pretty low, yeah, so it's just a different model. I know how to construct the, put on events and do it at a profitable level.

I'm probably the only person in PFL/WSOF history that ever put on a profitable event. And you've got now where half a billion is what they've raised? And I know people who were the first investors in that entity. They haven't received a dollar back from their investment. So at what point in time do new investors say like, hey, you haven't paid back a dollar to your original investors, maybe this isn't a very good investment. And I think that's what we're starting to see. I'm getting calls from these Private Equity funds that are saying, hey, we've met with PFL, we're not really liking what we're seeing based on the track record and the history. This new thing you guys are doing seems kind of interesting, so those conversations are happening.

We just did something yesterday that was pretty significant. We signed a term sheet yesterday for our first team in the sale in the tens of millions of dollars. We have another one lined up for even more in the same range. This is the game we're playing, it's billionaires buying teams that want to do something. They see the value, like Forbes just released that the expected value of an NFL franchise in 10 years from now will be $27 billion."

Is the GFL selling team franchises without announcing event dates, arena bookings, or sponsorships for actual MMA shows?

Millionaires or billionaires are lining up to buy prospective GFL team franchises with rosters featuring fighters in their mid-40s?

Is it more likely or less likely that running MMA events with 40-somethings will result in permanent disability or death occurring?

How are they going to pull this off in states with athletic commissions like California or New York? I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of events in states with more flexible oversight like Texas or Florida.

Even after listening to Darren Owen talk about the GFL in extended interviews, I still have no idea what fights he is trying to sell. None.

And that’s the hard pill for all of us to swallow. We don’t matter as fans. We’re not their customers.

How to lose a billion dollars in MMA

The PFL has reportedly spent anywhere from an estimated $250 million dollars (according to booster Fight Oracle) to $500 million dollars (Darren Owen claim).

Chatri and ONE has burned through over $500 million dollars.

Throw in a reported $100 million dollar (plus) loss for Paramount with Bellator. A reported loss of $55 million dollars for Elite XC. And…

We are talking approximately one billion dollars supposedly spent by non-TKO players.

And what is there to show for it?

The GFL is supposedly raising tens of millions of dollars in cash — by their own public declarations. And they haven’t even started running events.

The GFL has no arena dates announced. They are starting to announce some fights, including Fabricio Werdum vs. Frank Mir.

The same Fabricio Werdum who recently said under oath:

"While fighting for the UFC, I suffered many concussions. I fear that during my career I have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) and am noticing symptoms common with TBI and CTE including irritability, anger, anxiety, insomnia and memory loss. I have many lesions and scarring in my brain, and I have a cyst that is located centrally within my brain making surgery thus far impossible. I monitor this cyst with biannual exams to determine if it is growing. To date, no treatment for CTE has been found."

PFL, meanwhile, is in a rough patch.

The promotion that claims to be the “undisputed” number two in MMA hasn’t even announced venues or fight cards for 2025 — outside of four dates in Orlando.

The last time I checked, you have to let fans know where you’re running events so they can show up, buy tickets and watch.

This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.

Donn Davis has spent a decade with his “build it and they will come” philosophy. His new elevator pitch is that UFC will get at least $800 million dollars yearly for their new media rights deal, so don’t be a loser and miss out on MMA. Buy the PFL and “own the sport.”

This interview clip is from October 16, 2024. Four months ago. Listen to how confident and cocky Donn Davis is when he’s around a bunch of business suits and he’s squarely focused on process.

"Ari Emanuel called Kevin Mayer and said we're doing this [UFC] deal. And everybody said Kevin Mayer did a terrible deal when he was at Disney. And it's a brilliant deal. Everybody said you've overpaid and now the rest of the market wished they did ESPN's deal and it's been the top performing sport for ESPN+ for five years on a per-dollar basis and everybody wished they had that streaming deal.

Well, now that deal is coming to market and everybody who has a streaming asset is going to bid. There's going to be five bidders now for the UFC deal in January of 2025.

I'm a big supporter and January 2026, PFL comes to market. So, it's interesting because you've got five major bidders who said five years ago, MMA niche. Now, MMA mass. I don't know how it's going to work. Now, MMA big big big deal. Streaming, I'm not starting yet. Now, streaming is my whole future.

So, UFC is going to have five big offers. It's going to be $8 billion over 10 years and it's going to determine the winners and losers DEFINITIVELY of those streaming companies. Because the NBA started it and now we start to see some winners and losers off the NBA. The end of that story is going to be MMA because there's nothing coming for five years after MMA. You start to look at any major sport, it's not until the NFL reopens that anybody can do anything about it. That's five years away.

$8 billion for UFC, their entire package will be $800 million a year if you take their media plus their pay-per-view. Remember, they have 50 events a year. 15 pay-per-view, 35 on media. It's going to be $800 million if they keep that whole package together.

Then PFL will come along in January 2026 and some of those media companies will say, $8 billion was too much for me. Can I get in MMA because it's a top performing sport for young people? And it's the growth sport. And you guys are half the audience and you guys have a more innovative product and the sports season format's pretty cool where you win and advance, lose and go home. Advertisers, I can sell that a little bit more easily with the whole season. Professional's in your name. You're not as controversial, I like that. I can make money on that.

And also, the winning bidder is going to bid for us also. It's the only sport you can own. If any media company could own all of college football, they would. They could own all the NBA, they would. The only major sport you can own all is MMA because there's only, it's a duopoly. There's only two providers and there's only 80 events.

The fascinating big big story that hasn't been talked about and will get started to talk about is what happens to MMA will determine what happens to least two media companies' futures because who wins, good. Whoever loses is going to have to sell their company because they don't have enough sports rights."

When Donn has to talk substance like he did with Mike Heck of MMA Fighting, he melts. Donn Davis has never recovered his mojo as an interview guest since that town hall.

And since Donn’s Front Office Sports interview last October, things have changed rather quickly. PFL is probably out of both the Francis Ngannou business (back to boxing) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Turki Alalshikh won’t even say PFL’s name.

You notice that in none of these promoter conversations, they never address the fans or fight content?

These copycat promoters have no interest in making a sale to an actual customer.

Imagine building a lemonade stand. Instead of focusing on selling lemonade to customers in front of you, you’re busy trying to sell your lemonade stand to a neighbor by focusing on how much potential foot traffic it could draw.

Everyone is trying to copy the hustle of the TKO government cartel without actually having any interest in making a great product.

Because focusing on substance could hurt the process hustle.

“Wait, what am I selling again?”

These private equity fly traps are helping to destroy the fight business because the bottom is going to fall out. The hustlers will find a way to make their quick buck, but what about the rest of us? Then what?

You are no longer the audience for fight promoters in interviews. They are speaking to future financiers. That is the only audience they pay attention to.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams with a heaping helping of concierge lip service to the big whales. I would be laughing if it wasn’t so sad and pathetic — and highly destructive to our passion, the fight game.

Zach Arnold is a lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw on Substack. His archives can be read at FightOpinion.com.