{"id":683441,"date":"2026-05-20T17:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/683441\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T17:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:46:08","slug":"mvps-mma-debut-on-netflix-was-a-success-but-what-now-column-post-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/683441\/","title":{"rendered":"MVP’s MMA debut on Netflix was a success. But what now? | Column – POST Wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nPhoto Courtesy: Netflix<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to argue against the fact that Most Valuable Promotions delivered a smash hit with its first-ever MMA event last weekend.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m willing to admit that I was a skeptic. Heading into Saturday night\u2019s show, I wasn\u2019t sure if a large-scale viewership could be attracted for the broadcast.<\/p>\n

North American MMA fans haven\u2019t really shown much of an appetite for non-UFC cards in recent years. Whether it be because promoters don\u2019t know how to get that mainstream appeal, or fans simply couldn\u2019t care to try out a new option, that\u2019s been a large part of UFC\u2019s success story as of late. UFC is so synonymous with MMA that the most casual viewer might conflate the two. Even when Francis Ngannou made his first-ever post-UFC appearance in 2023, it didn\u2019t feel like a massive deal.<\/p>\n

Carano and Rousey\u2019s returns, while big for many sections of the lapsed fanbase, might not have been appealing to the Gen-Z crowd, many of whom latched onto UFC when it had a boom of popularity in the COVID-19 pandemic, long after either fighter previously stepped into a cage.<\/p>\n

But the numbers argue that Saturday\u2019s show, despite any reason to be skeptical, won the night. On Tuesday, Netflix reported that the broadcast of Ronda Rousey\u2019s 17-second submission win against Gina Carano peaked at nearly 17 million viewers globally,<\/a> staggering (albeit not unprecedented)<\/a> numbers for a competitor brand in MMA. An average of 12 million was reported for the three-hour broadcast.<\/p>\n

Before last weekend\u2019s main event, MVP head Nakisa Bidarian called the card a \u201ctest.\u201d And, by my standards, they passed that assessment with flying colors.<\/p>\n

The event was a testament to the drawing power of Carano and Rousey, both over a decade removed from their last fights, and the ability of MVP to quickly make an impact in a sport they had not touched before.<\/p>\n

The event went head-to-head with a low-key UFC card, which generated little chatter online. Saturday proved that, when done right, MVP can challenge UFC\u2019s spot as the top promotion. There doesn\u2019t have to be just one company running the sport.<\/p>\n

But can they do it right again? That\u2019s a much more complicated problem to solve.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It might be hard for MVP to replicate the situation they found themselves in last weekend: On the streaming goliath that is Netflix, earning a multi-million dollar gate inside an NBA team\u2019s state-of-the-art building, attracting more eyeballs than a head-to-head UFC broadcast.<\/p>\n

The question going forward is, with the limited talent pool they can access, is MVP able to once again make a \u201cbig\u201d fight?<\/p>\n

We have long known that Netflix is in the business of big events. They want MLB\u2019s Opening Day and Home Run Derby, not Friday Night Baseball. They\u2019d like the NFL\u2019s Christmas games, not their Thursday night slate. They want Alex Honnold to tempt death with a climb of the Taipei 101 on a live broadcast, not the annual rock climbing championships.<\/p>\n

Netflix has been notoriously selective regarding its sports programming. I mean, we\u2019re talking about the same Netflix that wasn\u2019t interested in taking UFC\u2019s entire fight schedule,<\/a> instead going after the brand\u2019s numbered events.<\/p>\n

For MVP to make MMA return to the platform, they\u2019d have to make another big fight. Live MMA, or even MMA with some recognizable names in action, probably wouldn\u2019t cut it. If you came to them and said, \u201cWe can give you a Francis Ngannou fight,\u201d they\u2019d reply, \u201cYeah, but against who?\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of UFC\u2019s long-standing dominance in MMA, there isn\u2019t exactly the greatest talent pool for MVP to go after.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: There is an impressive roster of world-class fighters around the world who aren\u2019t competing under the UFC banner. But how many of them can attract eyeballs in the seven figures? Just a handful, honestly. And of those few, they are spread out across weight classes and hard to match up. Finding big names is not an issue for MVP. Big matchups? Significantly harder.<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t make a big fight, you can likely count Netflix out. And if Netflix is out, who is in? That\u2019s a big question that we don\u2019t know the answer to. What\u2019s the appetite of an ESPN that lost its UFC rights in late 2025? The same ESPN that, it\u2019s worth noting, already has a working relationship with MVP through its women\u2019s boxing series.<\/p>\n

What other options are out there? Would a streamer like DAZN care? At the end of the day, if MVP wants to get its MMA division rolling, it needs a big partner who can help bankroll the type of high-budget showcase we saw just recently. Because if MVP doesn\u2019t have the money to challenge the UFC, they\u2019ll just become another B-League.<\/p>\n

There is a hunger from MVP to not have Saturday\u2019s show be remembered as a one-off. Much like how they slowly but methodically massaged their way into the boxing world, I\u2019m sure they\u2019d like to gain some footing in the much more homogenized MMA scene.<\/p>\n

Anyone who follows MMA should be hoping that this is the case. UFC has such dominance over the sport, and without real opposition, they have become complacent. MMA could use some massive change, and MVP might be the ones to bring that. But how? It\u2019ll be interesting to see what their answer might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Courtesy: Netflix It\u2019s hard to argue against the fact that Most Valuable Promotions delivered a smash hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,44069,9225,785,167942,38869,435,15809,85],"class_list":["post-683441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-gina-carano","tag-jake-paul","tag-mma","tag-most-valuable-promotions","tag-nakisa-bidarian","tag-netflix","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683441","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=683441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}