{"id":312491,"date":"2025-11-27T16:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/312491\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:12:08","slug":"cristiano-ronaldo-joins-mma-with-ilia-topurias-company-wow-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/312491\/","title":{"rendered":"Cristiano Ronaldo joins MMA with Ilia Topuria&#8217;s company WOW FC &#8211;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cristiano Ronaldo joins the world of the MMA. The 40-year-old Portuguese player, the world&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamereactor.eu\/cristiano-ronaldo-becomes-the-first-football-billionaire-according-to-bloomberg-1614693\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wealthiest footballer<\/a>, will become a shareholder of WOW FC (or The Way of Warriors FC), a Spanish mixed martial arts promoter founded in 2019, which has launched many successful fight events in Spain. Ilia Topuria, Spanish-Georgian mixed martial artist and currently UFC Lightweight Champion, also joined the company as a shareholder in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;MMA represents values I truly believe in &#8211; discipline, respect, resilience, and the constant pursuit of excellence. WOW FC is building something unique and powerful, and I&#8217;m proud to join this project to help elevate the sport and inspire the next generation&#8221;, said Ronaldo.<\/p>\n<p>With his money, WOW FC aims to keep growing outside of Spain: Europe, LATAM, Middle East and beyond, as well as new initiatives to &#8220;deepen the relationship between audiences and athletes&#8221;, to create more accessible ways to &#8220;experience&#8221; the sport. In Spain, attendance to WOW FC events has increased 400% year on year, with more than 5,000 spectators per show.<\/p>\n<p>For Topuria, having Cristiano Ronaldo is &#8220;a powerful moment for the sport as he represents the highest standards of professionalism, hard work and global excellence&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Further reading: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamereactor.eu\/new-details-on-topurias-possible-return-in-early-2026-ufc-reportedly-sets-date-and-venue-for-its-first-major-event-1630483\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New details on Topuria&#8217;s possible return in early 2026: UFC reportedly sets date and venue<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"img-1641063-4741283\" data-fullsize=\"\/media\/12\/cristianoronaldojoins_4741283b.jpg\" data-lazy=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamereactor.euhttps:\/\/www.gamereactor.eu\/media\/12\/cristianoronaldojoins_4741283_650x.jpg\" width=\"650\" onclick=\"if (!window.__cfRLUnblockHandlers) return false; gallery_openmodal('1641063','4741283',false,'ad177a1b319fe986e2030fc03d2df126');\" height=\"366\" alt=\"Cristiano Ronaldo joins MMA with Ilia Topuria's company WOW FC\" class=\"rwd_col_content lazy\" data-cf-modified-eddbffb236c929bae4f759b0-=\"\"\/>wowfcmma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cristiano Ronaldo joins the world of the MMA. The 40-year-old Portuguese player, the world&#8217;s wealthiest footballer, will become&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-312491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}