{"id":892401,"date":"2026-09-15T03:08:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892401\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T03:08:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:08:22","slug":"scott-coker-unveils-ki-mma-32-man-global-featherweight-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892401\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Coker Unveils Ki MMA, 32-Man Global Featherweight Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KIKI MMA Logo Credit: Pat Danna\/Cageside Press<\/p>\n

Scott Coker\u2019s new mixed martial arts promotion has a name: Ki MMA.<\/p>\n

It also has a featherweight tournament incoming.<\/p>\n

Coker, alongside Griffin Gaming Partners co-founder Peter Levin and former Bellator MMA matchmaker Rich Chou, were on hand at a press conference New York City on Monday to announce the longtime promoter\u2019s latest venture. Coker is best known to fight fans as the man behind Strikeforce MMA, and later, taking over the reigns at Bellator following the exit of founder Bjorn Rebney.<\/p>\n

Also on hand, a number of MMA legends, including Randy Couture, who gave a brief speech, Fedor Emelianenko, and Cris Cyborg.<\/p>\n

Levin, early in the press conference, noted that there is a \u201cdearth of triple A content\u201d on streaming platforms, adding that \u201cthere\u2019s a huge appetite for premier elite content.\u201d So when it came time to move back into MMA (Levin previously backed Strikeforce), choosing Coker was easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe happens to be one of my best friends, but I\u2019ve seen first hand, he\u2019s a generational operator. He\u2019s an apex predator,\u201d he stated. \u201cThere\u2019s like two people on God\u2019s green earth that have taken an MMA platform, global scaled it and made it profitable, and he\u2019s done it twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rich Chou suggested that \u201cthere\u2019s no soul in the sport right now,\u201d which is why they\u2019re looking back to the early days of the sport for inspiration. With that in mind, the tournament format returns.<\/p>\n

So does fighting in a ring, Scott Coker revealed.<\/p>\n

As for the tournament in question, it will take place at featherweight. \u201cAt 145, the world can participate,\u201d noted Chou. Ideally, the promotion is looking for athletes with under ten fights, in the 18 to 25 age range. Future stars. The 32-man field will be divided by eight fighters in each of four continents: North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Visits to Brazil and Ireland are likely.<\/p>\n

After quaterfinal, semifinal, and final rounds in the continental tournament, a\u00a0global grand finale will see finalists fighting twice in one night.<\/p>\n

The tournament format will make up \u201c30% of the fights we put on next year,\u201d with other weight classes expected to bolster each card. According to Coker, \u201cwe have a budget that, there\u2019s not any free agent that\u2019s untouchable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ki MMA is expected to debut in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KI MMA Logo Credit: Pat Danna\/Cageside Press Scott Coker\u2019s new mixed martial arts promotion has a name: Ki…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,12059,4736,786,15810,15803,11877,15805,801,10280,785,2843,15808,5963,15804,15809,85,15806,787,15807],"class_list":["post-892401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bellator","tag-conor-mcgregor","tag-fighting","tag-gsp","tag-invicta","tag-jon-jones","tag-lfa","tag-martial-arts","tag-mixed-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-one-championship","tag-one-fc","tag-pfl","tag-rizin","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports","tag-titan-fc","tag-ufc","tag-wsof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892401","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=892401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}