ABC's 'Dark Side of the UFC' only covered the tip of the iceberg

Is there a reason the most powerful men in combat sports go unmentioned?

After many months of production, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation released its new “Dark Side of the UFC” documentary.

One thing that isn’t a secret — Aussie UFC fans are much more likely to be watching The Murdoch Family’s Sky News Australia than they are state-funded ABC.

I would encourage everyone — expert MMA fan or casual UFC big-event watcher — to view ABC’s new Four Corners documentary on the current state of UFC affairs.

Let’s provide some context and background behind this show and why it is a rewarding watch, but more importantly, why ABC completely omitted the most important players in the sport and their goals and agenda.

What I got vs. what I expected

For lack of a better term, the best analogy I could give Americans watching Four Corners is that it’s like a hybrid version of the PBS Frontline show + Dateline + A Current Affair.

If those references are dated, they are nonetheless apt.

Four Corners is slickly produced and cinematic. It’s a breezy watch covering some pretty intense topics. Spending 45 minutes watching Dark Side of the UFC was not hard to do. And, at times, it is very compelling television.

Sure, there are the required n00b moments that will grate on MMA hardcores, but all in all, this is a well-produced documentary.

My expectations were low-to-moderate going in, and Four Corners cleared that bar. However, the industry reaction I’ve seen so far has ranged from weak to safe to didn’t land a punch.

As a primer, Dark Side of the UFC gives a glimpse into the hardship of current and retired UFC fighters without being over-dramatic or maudlin. It gives an accurate review of how big a business the UFC is and the physical and financial challenges some retired fighters are facing.

It’s a great advertisement for past and current UFC antitrust litigation. This is growing in importance by the day and will become an important development in 2026.

The most memorable character interviewed for Dark Side of the UFC is Nate Quarry. Excellent public speaker and communicator. The bitter irony is that Mr. Quarry is worried about being able to communicate in the same manner a decade from now.

Intriguingly, there was no mention or sighting of Mark Hunt. Nor Ross Pearson.

The timing of this documentary for ABC couldn’t have been any better, given the rise of Jack Della Maddalena. He is the most notable star on this program. Four Corners played it largely down the middle when reviewing his rise (and future challenges) to UFC fame.

There are engaging appearances from Bec Rawlings, Tyson Pedro, and coach John Donehue. Easy, likeable, tough, charismatic, but not flamethrowers by any stretch of the imagination.

The media portion was very interesting. Luke Thomas was phenomenal. John Nash was sharp. Jacob Debets was more soft-spoken than I was expecting. These media appearances felt in sharp contrast to the rest of the segments on Dark Side of the UFC.

There was plenty of surface-level discussion of Sean Strickland in the context of Australia’s hate speech laws.

And it was interesting to see Four Corners advertise — and grant — Dana White more authority and power as “ring master” than he currently really has.

The irony, of course, is that whatever perceived power both Sean Strickland and Dana White have in UFC circles in June of 2025 has greatly diminished from the beginning of this calendar year.

The most valuable aspect of Dark Side of the UFC production was getting a look at how much some people really, truly do build their entire lives around UFC. It’s like watching thousands of MMA Gurus in the wild. John Nash often talks about UFC as a lifestyle brand, but it doesn’t fully register until you see diehards bragging about spending a year’s worth of savings for a few hours of UFC buzz.

There was some conversation about the massive TKO government contracts being dished out by Aussie politicians for big UFC & WWE events. We got the usual “trade secrets” palaver from said politicians. We got the usual UFC PR regarding their Economic Impact Reports and what their operation represents.

"Invested billions of dollars building the sport... that has benefited thousands of athletes."

"The UFC has become the gold standard for athlete health and safety in all of combat sports... on brain health research... and anti-doping."

"The UFC has continually reviewed and strengthened... health and safety protocols to protect the athletes who compete in the Octagon."

I largely expected all of this. That doesn’t make Dark Side of the UFC any less compelling. But there is something they left out, something that their audience needs to understand.

What ABC left out of the story

Six months ago, the UFC was barely a topic of conversation within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Then, UFC 312 in Sydney arrived with Sean Strickland vs. Dricus du Plessis, and ABC couldn’t ignore the subject matter any longer. They also couldn’t ignore the enormous taxpayer handouts to TKO.

One of the missions of The MMA Draw is to educate as many people as possible about what is really going on with fight politics. The lobbying, the global financial and political alliances with Wall Street, world governments, and venture capital value extractors, the tangled conflicts of interest that control what fight fans see on their screens.

We spent a lot of time talking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about how the UFC works.

The MMA Draw provided a significant amount of information, story ideas, and background preparation for ABC. Dark Side of the UFC did a fine job covering many of the concepts we discussed with ABC, but in the end, they failed to ask the most important questions.

For example, we pushed very hard for a discussion of Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, and their inner circle (think: Khaldoon Al Mubarak).

Why is UFC such a political mercenary? What is Ari’s end game? We discussed major conflicts of interest, especially from countries and states buying fight shows while simultaneously regulating UFC events and providing immunity/liability protection.

ABC made an editorial decision to avoid talking about Endeavor, Silver Lake, and TKO ownership. They broke the cardinal rule of news reporting: follow the money.

It’s not a secret that Ari Emanuel has a direct line to The White House and is preparing a major 2028 US Presidential campaign for his brother, Rahm.

It’s not a conspiracy theory that an international consortium headed up by Silver Lake and Ari Emanuel’s WME Group (formerly Endeavor) owns the UFC, the WWE and is attempting to take over boxing. These are publicly known facts.

Why would one of the world’s most powerful political wheeler-and-dealers get intentionally ignored by a major government-funded public broadcaster?

ABC held multiple meetings with The MMA Draw — and other key industry insiders — to research the show. They learned a lot about how the UFC really works in the course of their research.

And yet when the work was completed, ABC didn’t discuss Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, or Nick Khan by name. They didn’t follow up on the most important leads. They did not follow the money.

Ari Emanuel is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood and THE most powerful figure in combat sports.

Ari Emanuel is a charismatic figure, so much so that HBO based a long-running series on a fictionalized version of his life.

And yet, ABC doesn’t consider Ari Emanuel’s role in the UFC something that merits significant screen time.

Why?

Is Ari Emanuel’s use of the UFC to expand his global influence too hot for ABC to handle?

Does ABC not respect the intelligence of its audience enough to focus on the fact that the owner of the UFC is also one of the most influential cultural and political figures in the world?

You should still watch ABC’s Dark Side of the UFC, it’s a fine, if surface-level survey of the sport, but it could have dived much deeper and revealed much more.

Zach Arnold is the lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw Newsletter on Substack. You can e-mail him at fightopinion - at - protonmail dot com.