Former Bellator and Strikeforce boss Scott Coker has introduced plans to launch a struggle league subsequent 12 months which he hopes will turn out to be a “international model in MMA”.
The venture is backed by $60m (£44.7m) in funding, Coker mentioned. He acknowledged it’ll contain buyers from inside sport, media, expertise and finance.
Coker, 63, is thought to be a pioneer in MMA after being instrumental within the rise of former promotion Strikeforce, which was bought by the UFC’s dad or mum firm Zuffa in 2011.
His final main function was at Bellator, the place he was the promotion’s president till it was acquired by the PFL on the finish of 2023.
“I at all times knew that I might come again when the time was proper, with the suitable imaginative and prescient and a fastidiously assembled workforce. That point has arrived,” mentioned Coker, who will function the corporate’s CEO.
“There’s a large demand for a brand new international model in MMA. This new league is about going again to fundamentals: the integrity of competitors, respect for the athletes and sharing their exceptional journeys with the world.
“We’re constructing one thing genuine, one thing that belongs to the athletes and followers who dwell and breathe this sport.”
Particulars together with the organisation’s identify, construction and athletes are but to be introduced.
The time period ‘struggle league’ suggests it might undertake a round-robin construction, versus a rankings-based matchmaking mannequin just like the UFC.
Though Coker’s final promotion Bellator struggled to rival the UFC’s reputation, his new venture comes at a time when the game’s panorama could possibly be altering.
Final week, Ronda Rousey beat Gina Carano inside 15 seconds in a struggle that was promoted by Jake Paul’s Most Invaluable Promotions (MVP) and watched by a document 17 million viewers on Netflix.
Rousey and fighters akin to Cris Cyborg and Daniel Cormier constructed their manufacturers in Coker’s Strikeforce earlier than becoming a member of the UFC the place they turned champions and flourished.
Coker was additionally president of Strikeforce when Cyborg confronted Carano in 2009 within the first girls’s struggle to headline a significant MMA present.
