Most Valuable Promotions says it’s already seeing significant interest from mixed martial artists who want to sign with the property that it is creating with the PFL.
In July, the two companies announced they would merge to create a new combat sports “powerhouse” that would span different forms of fighting similar to TKO Group Holdings. MVP has already established itself in boxing with Jake Paul and its investment in the women’s side of the sport, while PFL has been striving to become a competitor to UFC.
Now, they’re going to band together and become part of the increased competition that UFC could face in the coming years. So far, MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian said the reaction from the announcement has been big in terms of fighters reaching out to say they’re interested in joining the reformatted property.
“We have an unbelievable amount of inbound interest of athletes that want to work with us, and we also have fighters who are signed to other promoters and we don’t even respond to. To be honest, there’s not a conversation to be had until people are free agents,” Bidarian told SBJ in a phone interview from England. “But the amount of DMs, emails, phone calls that (PFL CEO) John Martin is getting, our matchmakers are getting, myself, Jake, is nonstop on a daily basis.”
Bidarian said MVP has not engaged with any UFC fighters when asked about athletes from that roster, given the rules against such communication. However, he said: “Not that we’ve communicated with [them], but there’s lots of inbound [interest] from athletes across all spectrums.”
Looking back on the announcement, Bidarian said he was pleased by the amount of press coverage it generated, and MVP’s business partners are “thrilled and engaged more so than ever.”
“And that means more opportunities across the board from a business perspective,” Bidarian added.
Last weekend, MVP celebrated the five-year anniversary of its founding in late August 2021, when it launched with the Jake Paul-Tyron Woodley fight. With the combined MVP/PFL entity, MVP says it now has 400 athletes signed to its roster. Bidarian said the merger with PFL will give MVP global infrastructure that PFL has spent hundreds of millions of dollars building out.
“Of course from an athlete standpoint, you think about having more eyes on your performances, more eyes on your career, only means expanded opportunities, so athletes are excited as well,” Bidarian said.
In the press release revealing the deal, the sides said the new entity would operate under the MVP name. Asked if that meant the PFL name would be folded entirely – and what the new name of the MMA league would be – Bidarian said: “We’re working through what the brand architecture is. Obviously, the master brand is MVP. And it may be driven by discipline, distributor, product – we’re just figuring out how we want to roll out the brand architecture. But obviously, MVP will be the reference brand for everything that we do.”
“I think the PFL brand may exist in some formation for certain products,” he added, “but in terms of the main MMA product, it will be MVP driven.”
UNBELIEVABLE
To be fair, 3 inquiries would be unbelievable. Could be possible.
BRAND ARCHITECTURE
the man is a reptilian cunt, don’t trust! don’t trust!
Perry, Namo and Parnesse already went to fight for other promotions.
They might bring back Nate and Francis but their roster is still mostly the PFL roster. The UFC will do whatever to secure any possible big time names who might have a few fights left leaving MVP to just book mismatches.
Mma is entering a late stage capitalism dark age.
it’s not a sport anymore, just a brand to be bought and sold with the fighting as an afterthought.
I DONT know what we would do without You Ned
Uhhh maybe MVP is super interested in going there after his contract with the UFC expires after tomorrow’s fight, but that’s about all the interest there is. Maybe that’s what they meant?? 
PFL has had some plenty of entertaining vets and prospects throughout the years and even they could not sustain.