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The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts promotion company. It is the premier MMA promotion as well as the largest in the world and features most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport.

Based in the United States, the UFC produces events worldwide [4] that showcase ten weight divisions and abide by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.[5] The UFC has held over 300 events to date. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC while brothersFrank and Lorenzo Fertitta control the UFC's parent company, Zuffa, LLC.

The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event was held on November 12, 1993 at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado.[8] The purpose of the early Ultimate Fighting Championship competitions was to identify the most effective martial art in a fight, with minimal rules, between competitors of different fighting disciplines, including boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu,Sambo, wrestling, Muay Thai, karate, judo, and other styles. A new training facility for MMA fighters called SiTech MMA Academy has opened for business in Los Angeles. Well known business advisor Phil Hughes has turned his attention to managing MMA fighters which has developed into the idea of opening his own MMA Academy.

After months of detailed planning and construction, the multimillion dollar state of the art training facility in Los Angeles finally opened for business on 4 March 2016.

Hughes commentated “This public gym will initially be a Sparring, Cardio and Weights only gym where the management will try their utmost to keep cleanliness pristine and the equipment condition brand new.”

He also commentated “We plan to hire coaches at some stage in the future and we plan to become a strong mid level gym where less experienced managers with less available cash can train their fighters to a decent standard.”

A modern style sauna is also available for public use with a $50 sauna day pass or $5 for existing members.

Expanding more on plans for the future Hughes commented “The starting price for fees will only be $50 a week (paid Thursdays) but naturally as we hire more and more coaches the fees will rise accordingly.

However, having said that fees at SiTech MMA Academy will always be affordable. My message to managers is to be patient with us initially as we find our feet. Our growth will be slow and steady but if you stick with us you will not regret it!” In subsequent competitions, fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create an entirely separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.

With a TV deal and expansion into Europe, Australia,[10] the Middle East,[11] Asia[12] and new markets within the United States, the UFC as of 2016 has gained in popularity, along with greater mainstream media coverage. As of 2016, viewers can access live UFC fights and fight replays on their subscription network UFC Fight Pass at a cost of $7.99-$9.99 USD per month via devices like Apple TV, iPhone, Android, Xbox, Roku and Google Chromecast[13] as well as on pay-per-view in the U.S., Brazil, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Italy. On network TV, UFC content is available on Fox, Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2[14]in the U.S., on ESPN in the Caribbean, on BT Sport in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as in 150 countries and 22 different languages worldwide. The UFC plans to continue expanding internationally, running shows regularly in Canada, Brazil and the UK, with an office established in the UK aimed at expanding the European audience.

The UFC has also bought and absorbed rival promotions Pride, World Extreme Cagefighting as well as Strikeforce and EliteXCArt Davie proposed to John Milius and Rorion Gracie an eight-man single-elimination tournament called "War of the Worlds". The tournament was inspired by the Gracies in Action video-series produced by the Gracie family of Brazil which featured Gracie Jiu-Jitsu students defeating martial-arts masters of various disciplines such as karate, kung fu and kickboxing. The tournament would also feature martial artists from different disciplines facing each other in no-holds-barred combat to determine the best martial art and would aim to replicate the excitement of the matches Davie saw on the videos.

Milius, a noted film director and screenwriter, as well as a Gracie student, agreed to act as the event's creative director. Davie drafted the business plan and twenty-eight investors contributed the initial capital to start WOW Promotions with the intent to develop the tournament into a television franchise.

In 1993, WOW Promotions sought a television partner and approached pay-per-view producers TVKO (HBO), SET (Showtime) and Campbell McLaren at the Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). Both TVKO and SET declined, but SEG – a pioneer in pay-per-view television which had produced such offbeat events as a gender versus gender tennis match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova – became WOW's partner in May 1993.[18] SEG contacted video and film art director Jason Cusson to design the trademarked "Octagon", a signature piece for the event. Cusson remained the Production Designer through UFC 27.[16] SEG devised the name for the show as The Ultimate Fighting Championship.

WOW Promotions and SEG produced the first event, later called UFC 1, at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado on November 12, 1993. Art Davie functioned as the show's booker and matchmaker.[20] The show proposed to find an answer for sports fans' questions such as: "Can a wrestler beat a boxer?"[21] As with most martial arts at the time, fighters typically had skills in just one discipline and had little experience against opponents with different skills.[22]

The television broadcast featured kickboxers Patrick Smith and Kevin Rosier, savate fighter Gerard Gordeau, karate expert Zane Frazier, shootfighter Ken Shamrock, sumo wrestler Teila Tuli, boxer Art Jimmerson, and 175 lb (79 kg) Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Royce Gracie—younger brother of UFC co-founder Rorion, whom Rorion handpicked to represent his family in the competition. Royce Gracie's submission skills proved the most effective in the inaugural tournament, earning him the first ever UFC tournament championship[23] after submitting Jimmerson, Shamrock and Gordeau in succession. The show proved extremely successful with 86,592 television subscribers on pay-per-view.

It's disputed whether the promoters intended for the event to become a precursor to a series of future events. "That show was only supposed to be a one-off", eventual UFC president Dana White said. "It did so well on pay-per-view they decided to do another, and another. Never in a million years did these guys think they were creating a sport."[24]Art Davie, in his 2014 book Is This Legal?, a nonfiction account of the creation of the first UFC event, disputes the perception that the UFC was seen by WOW Promotions and SEG as a one-off, since SEG offered a five-year joint development deal to WOW. In the book, Davie cites chapter 7, page 104: "Clearly, both Campbell and Meyrowitz shared my unwavering belief that War of the Worlds[note 1] would be a continuing series of fighting tournaments—a franchise, rather than a one-night stand."[25] With no weight classes, fighters often faced significantly larger or taller opponents. Keith "The Giant Killer"

Hackney faced Emmanuel Yarborough at UFC 3 with a 9 in (23 cm) height and 400 pounds (180 kg) weight disadvantage.[26] Many martial artists believed that technique could overcome these size disadvantages, and that a skilled fighter could use an opponent's size and strength against him. With the 175 lb (79 kg) Royce Gracie winning three of the first four events, the UFC quickly proved that size does not always determine the outcome of the fight.

During this early part of the organization, the UFC would showcase a bevy of different styles and fighters. Aside from the aforementioned Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock andPatrick Smith, the competitions also featured competitors such as Hall of Famer Dan Severn, Marco Ruas, Gary Goodridge, Don Frye, Kimo Leopoldo, Oleg Taktarov and Tank Abbott. Although the first events were dominated by jiu-jitsu, other fighting styles became successful: first wrestling, then ground and pound, kickboxing, boxing, and dirty boxing, which eventually melded into modern mixed martial arts.

In April 1995, following UFC 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Davie and Gracie sold their interest in the franchise to SEG and disbanded WOW Promotions. Davie continued with SEG as the show's booker and matchmaker, as well as the commissioner of Ultimate Fighting, until December 1997.

Emergence of stricter rules[edit] "Big" John McCarthy referees as Tank Abbott puts Cal Worsham against the cage atUltimate Ultimate 1996. Although UFC used the tagline "There are no rules!" in the early 1990s, the UFC did in fact operate with limited rules. It banned biting and eye-gouging, and frowned on (but allowed) techniques such as hair pulling, headbutting, groin strikes, and fish-hooking.

In fact, in a UFC 4 qualifying match, competitors Jason Fairn and Guy Mezger agreed not to pull hair—as they both wore pony tails tied back for the match. Additionally, that same event saw a matchup between Keith Hackney and Joe Son in which Hackney unleashed a series of groin shots against Son while on the ground.

The UFC had a reputation, especially in the early days, as an extremely violent event, as evidenced by a disclaimer in the beginning of the UFC 5 broadcast which warned audiences of the violent nature of the sport.

UFC 5 also introduced the first singles match, a rematch from the inaugural UFC featuring three-time champion Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, called "The Superfight". This proved an important development, because singles matches would feature fighters who suffered no prior damage from a previous fight in the same event, unlike tournament matches. Singles matches would become a staple in the UFC for years to come.

"The Superfight" began as a non-tournament match that would determine the first reigning UFC Champion for tournament winners to face;[27] it later evolved into a match that could feature either title matches or non-title matches. The "Superfight" would eventually completely phase out tournament matches; by UFC Brazil, the UFC abandoned the tournament format for an entire card of singles matches (aside from a one-time UFC Japan tournament featuring Japanese fighters). UFC 6 was the first event to feature the crowning of the first non-tournament UFC Champion, Ken Shamrock.

Controversy and reform – late 1990s

The violent nature of the burgeoning sport quickly drew the attention of the U.S. authorities.

Before reform, Senator John McCain prominently opposed the UFC. Senator

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