Dana White has just announced that the grappling division of the UFC will include a reality show moving forward in to 2025. The promotion has already dominated the world of professional MMA and through the use of UFC Fight Pass, they’ve also brought in a number of regional MMA promotions as well. In recent years they’ve decided to turn their attention to professional grappling and although they started out pretty slow, the UFC Fight Pass Invitational has become one of the biggest events in the world. They’ve become a major player in the professional grappling world in just 3 years and now they’re poised to dominate there too.
We were able to reveal just a little over a week ago that the UFC was planning to put together a brand new grappling league, and now the news has started to become official. Numerous sources confirmed to us that top competitors were either in negotiation or had already signed exclusive contracts with the UFC, and Mikey Musumeci was the first to be announced publicly. Now UFC CEO Dana White has chosen to shed a little more light on the promotion’s plans for their grappling division, as he explained that it would involve a reality show:
“I’m also getting involved in grappling, in Jiu-Jitsu. We’re literally launching a reality show and then we’re gonna start putting on shows. TKO umbrella will have everything combat sports under it by 2025.”
It’s something that the UFC has a lot of experience in of course, as The Ultimate Fighter brought a whole new generation of fans to MMA. A grappling reality show isn’t an entirely new concept of course, as FloGrappling put together their Who’s Next show that followed a very similar format to TUF. It was on a much smaller scale of course but it was still a success; and it really helped to bring a number of grapplers like Dan Manasoiu, Izaak Michell, and Andrew Tackett into the limelight. If the UFC is able to do the same thing but with some of the best grapplers in the world like Musumeci, there’s no telling how big this show could be.
The full interview with Dana White where he announces the news that the grappling division of the UFC will include a reality show was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Sports Business Journal:
