NAME: ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP
FOUNDER: ART DAVIE, RORION GRACIE, BOB MEYROWITZ
FOUNDED: 1993 [MMA]
HQ: LAS VEGAS, NV
PARENT COMPANY: ZUFFA LLC
WEBSITE: WWW.UFC.COM
HISTORY:
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest mixed martial arts promotion company in the world, which hosts most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport and produces events worldwide. Based in the United States, the UFC has eight weight divisions and enforces the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC while Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta control the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa, LLC.
The first UFC event was held in 1993 in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of the event was to identify the most effective martial art in a real fight between competitors of different fighting disciplines, including boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, wrestling, Muay Thai, Karate, Jujutsu, and other styles. In subsequent competitions, fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create an entirely separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.
Controversy due to lack of fighter safety regulations in the early days of the UFC when their slogan was, “There Are No Rules!”, caught the eye of Senator John McCain who went on a personal quest to dismantle the UFC organization sending letters to all governors of the fifty U.S. states urging them to ban the sport. MMA in the early days was a lot more brutal than the MMA of today. John McCain referred to the spectacle as, “human cock-fighting”, and on the eve of UFC 12 New York state enforced it’s regulations against “no-hold-barred ” fighting and forced the event to be relocated at the last minute.
Some milestones in UFC reform on in it’s struggle to be sanctioned included the introduction of weight-classes and elimination of “fish-hooking” in UFC 12, in UFC 14 fighters were forced to wear gloves and kicks to the head of downed opponents was banned. In UFC 15 strikes to the back of the head, hair pulling, and groin strikes, small joint manipulation, and head butting became illegal. UFC 21 saw the integration of the five minute rounds.
After a long and dragged out sanctioning battle, SEG the group who at the time owned the UFC was close to the end, staring bankruptcy in the face. In 2001 casino moguls, the Fertitta brothers along with business partner Dana White bought the rights to the UFC for two million dollars.
With a cable-television deal and expansion into Canada, Europe, Australia the Middle East, Asia and new markets within the United States, the UFC as of 2011 has gained in popularity, along with greater mainstream-media coverage. As of 2001 viewers can access UFC programming on pay-per-view television in the U.S., Brazil, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Italy. UFC programming can also be found on FX, Fuel TV, and Fox in the U.S., on ESPN in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as in 150 countries and 22 different languages worldwide. UFC programming is shown in 130 countries worldwide, and the UFC plans to continue expanding internationally, running shows regularly in Canada and the U.K., with an office established in the U.K. aimed to expand the European audience. UFC has also held events in Brazil, Germany, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, while Afghanistan, Mexico and the Philippines are candidates for future events.
The UFC has also bought and absorbed rival promotions Pride, World Extreme Cagefighting and Strikeforce. Under to direction of present day UFC president Dana White the sport of MMA has exploded into mainstream America and been legitimized as a true sport by media giants such as FOX who currently has a firm grip on America’s most televised and followed sport, NFL Football. Due to Dana White who president of the UFC in 2001 and the new rules and safety regulations as well as fighter weight-classes, the UFC has come from the pits of bankruptcy to multi-million dollar per event enterprise [UFC 129 broke records at $11 million dollars for the Georges St Pierre Vs Jake Shields fight.]
(SOURCE: WIKI)
MIXED MARTIAL ARTS 