Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions rolled into Los Angeles, California this afternoon (Tue. Mar 10th, 2026) to launch their big Netflix MMA debut featuring Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano and Francis Ngannou vs. Phillipe Lins. That goes down May 16th from the Intuit Dome, and it’s expected they’ll sell over 18,000 tickets to the event.
Carano and Rousey are two of the most reclusive stars in the sport, but both were in good spirits at the press conference … although they did admit returning to mixed martial arts was not a decision they approached lightly.
Rousey credited her return to helping a friend earn his judo black belt.
“I had put a lot of walls around my heart when it came to martial arts and everything like that,” Rousey admitted. “I was forced to retire over some neurological issues that I I didn’t really have any clarity about, and it just hurt to be around it. But once I started getting deep into it again and explaining things and getting back to it, it made me fall in love with martial arts again. It reminded me of the joy that it gave me from the very beginning and why I love it so much.”
“Once I found that love again and I saw [Gina] not doing well, I was like, ‘You know what? We both need to reclaim our bodily identity together, rewrite our own endings together.’ So I reached out to her, and it’s been such a journey to get here and so many obstacles and so many people tried to get in between us and insert their own agenda.”
Carano said she got the call at the end of 2024 from Dana White relaying Rousey’s challenge.
“Dana gave me a call,” she said. “And he said, ‘Ronda’s pregnant. I think she’s nine months pregnant, and she wants to fight, and she said the only one she wants to fight is you.’ And at that time, I was extremely sick in my body. I had had a couple of tough, rough years, like I think a lot of us had. And at that time I was like, ‘You know what? Absolutely.’ And then it just became more and more real as 2025 went on.”
“And, it is pretty incredible and surreal to be here today,” Carano concluded. “It’s healing. It’s exciting. It’s everything I could have hoped for. I didn’t know I needed this so bad.”
Rousey revealed more details of how close the fight came to happening under the UFC banner.
“Originally, we were gonna do a New Year’s [event], and it was gonna be the last fight under the pay-per-view model,” Rousey said. “And [Dana White] offered me the best pay-per-view structure ever. And I was so grateful. But then Gina said she needed more time to get in the best shape possible, and that she wanted me to to fight the best version of herself. And I think that was fate. It was meant to be. It was meant to push us onto the other side.”
Her gratitude and love towards Dana White did not extend to TKO, who owns UFC now. Rousey accused the public company of taking White’s power away and putting the promotion in value extraction mode.
“It used to be that UFC was the best place to go in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly,” she said. “Now it’s one of the worst places to go. It’s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s why their champions like Valentina are selling pictures of their t–ties on OnlyFans, you know?”
“A lot of them at the ground level, they can’t even support their families. They’re living poverty-level fighting full time. And this company just got $7.7 billion. There’s no reason they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage, and not even that, to at least be able to match what these athletes are making in other sports.”
“Why would they expect to get the best athletes and the best aspiring kids that want to be something into MMA?” Rousey asked. “Why not go into football? Why not go into boxing? Why not go into anything else? And so they’re bleeding talent because of their short term greed. They’re thinking about the next quarter. They’re thinking about the shareholders, and they’re not thinking about their responsibility to be, you know, stewards of the of the future of the sport.”
“Once they’ve moved into the streaming model, it’s just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore,” Rousey declared. “Dana is legally beholden to the shareholders and to maximize shareholder value. And unfortunately, now that they’ve taken the reins from the company away from him, it’s barely recognizable now. They need to be saved from themselves, and luckily, I’m here to be their hero.”
Ronda would be our hero too if she manages to get mainstream attention on the cheapskate ways of the UFC these days. Obliterating Gina Carano in 30 seconds with a judo throw to armbar combo will probably be easy. Taking on the bean counters at TKO? Now that’s a fight.
I hate to agree with her, but it does seem like they put Hunter Campbell in control over there and the quality has gone to shit a little bit.
A lot of the champs are like not booked for fights. HW and WW are held up with injury. LHW is now absent a champ. MW Kumshat doesnt want to seem to fight ever, and all he talks about is changing weight classes. LW Has a paper champ. FW has a guy who was planning to retire if he lost his last fight.
A lot of top contenders are like log jammed. A lot of the stars seems salty that some Zuffa boxing guy is making 15 mil.
That said MVP promotions are just serving up absolute dog slop fights. We watched the last zuffa boxing event and it was ok, but nothing game changing.
Tough, beautiful AND smart
The UFC has been putting on horrific cards for decades, long before Zuffa sold.
PRIDE FC > UFC.
Only casuals and the TUF generation are satisfied with the trash cards because it’s all they know.
How many cards per year did Pride have at the height of it’s popularity?
Writer is sure hyping the fight. Obliterating her opponent in 30 seconds will be easy. As for her remarks I’m pretty sure Valentina ain’t on Onlyfans. How is she going to be the hero UFC fighters need? Is she going to get people to leave the UFC for MVP? Is she going to put up any of her WWF money to help fighters below the poverty line?
All of these former fighters talk more about the UFC than they do where they are at. They can’t tell you why you should watch them fight or care about their careers other than something is negative towards the UFC.
This isn’t how you build competition; it’s just constant free publicity for the UFC. Ask the PFL how that’s worked out.
The press conference was huge. The media is giving this a push
At PRIDE FC’s peak, they had about 10 events per year if you include Bushido events. Main shows (minus Bushido) was around 5-6 events per year.
During that time, the UFC averaged around 6-7, so a very similar amount.
PRIDE FC had far better cards back then. The UFC, especially under Zuffa, always had crap cards.
Now when they have 40+/year? It’s even worse. Forget the Fight Night events, even their PPV cards were atrocious till the bitter end.
We know this from the recent court hearings as well.
Dana is now the public face of the UFC but not doing the operational management behind the scenes.
Wasn’t it Dana’s choice to give up matchmaking duties? Wasn’t Hunter Campbell his self chosen successor?
Cards have been mid for awhile though. New owners just want a return on their investment which means putting on fights in a nearly empty building, less and less big fights, their superstars may fight once every five years. We’re lucky if we get more than one title fight per numbered event. And then the state of some of these divisions is atrocious.
All Hunter does is negotiate contracts the main culprits are Ari Manuel and Mark Shapiro. Shapiro is president and COO of TKO.
The interest in this fight is nonexistent. She’s having to talk about UFC just to get a headline, and still not getting much traction even then.
Completely disagree that interest will be nonexistent.
The fight quality might shit the bed.
But there will be huge interest.
Similar to Jake Paul vs. 100-year old Mike Tyson.
You might hold your nose and watch.
But you’re gonna watch.
