Ilia Topuria's brutal billion-dollar KO at UFC 317

International Fight Week brought Big Momentum for TKO's monopoly.

There’s only one man in TKO who could possibly screw up these sure-fire, lock, stock and barrel UFC media rights negotiations after a golden UFC 317 fight event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Even I’m skeptical that this individual could blow it, but more on that power player later in this email.

This article is about calling a spade a spade.

UFC had its best event of 2025 at UFC 317. They set up much of the rest of the event calendar for the remainder of the year and some potential money matches for 2026. They can thank Ilia Topuria for his violent contributions in the Octagon.

Additionally, TKO is setting the table to take over both Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and boxing. TKO’s corporate branding strategy was on full display at International Fight Week.

Building a strong marketing connection between UFC and BJJ

When people say BJJ, they’ll think UFC in the future. Kind of like how everyone calls tissues Kleenex. Thanks to Ike Epstein and Claudia Gadelha, UFC should have little trouble signing away the biggest brand ambassadors competitors, and transitioning them into image characters to bolster licensing deals.

TKO is really building a health & fitness division involving UFC Gyms, UFC BJJ Gyms, UFC Performance Institutes, and NIL payouts for top athletic prospects. A majority of people who currently train in martial arts like BJJ have no interest in UFC. These customers, in the near future, will be bombarded with UFC branding for anything and everything. The TKO monopoly will be inescapable.

On the Zuffa Boxing front, Nick Khan’s buddy Max Kellerman is delivering a clear and concise sales pitch.

Dana White loves boxing. Look at all the boxing memorabilia at UFC HQ. Without Dana & Turki, this fight with Canelo vs. Crawford wouldn’t be happening. What would the future of boxing be without Dana White & Turki Alalshikh?

It’s the Zuffa Myth reborn. TKO is going to Talk This Into Existence and cram it down everyone’s throat. We’ll see if there are any holdouts, but my money is on the world-class Endeavor PR machine successfully programming & reprogramming fight history amongst males 18-to-34 years old.

The Walmart of combat sports is full-steam ahead on their monopoly, and nobody is even stepping up to mount fulsome opposition. TKO is the only game in town, and they’re acting like it.

(For our paid subscribers at The MMA Draw, we will have two upcoming articles regarding both the impending TKO tsunami wiping out rival boxing promoters and how Ari Emanuel’s multi-monopoly has completely changed expectations of what media executives demand from fight promoters in 2026.)

A rather happy and relaxed UFC Brand Ambassador President Dana White enjoyed his UFC 317 post-fight press conference. At least by his unfocused 2025 standards. What’s not to enjoy right now? Ilia Topuria is on a Conor McGregor-at-his-prime trajectory that could print hundreds of millions of dollars for the UFC empire.

Naturally, you would suspect that a veteran fight promoter like Dana White would fully play along with everyone’s fantasies about a stadium event in Spain. It was an easy, guaranteed softball question. And then Dana delivered this rather negative answer:

"Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Spain isn't even an option right now anyways, so..."

What kind of answer is that?

Well, a few minutes later, a reporter from Spain told Dana White that Ilia Topuria was drawing Rafael Nadal-level ratings. Miraculously, Dana suddenly found a way to explore options to make a UFC Spain event a reality.

"Well, if it did those kind of numbers, obviously I'm thrilled. And yeah, we know that he's big over there and that people care. Like I said earlier, if you look at what he has accomplished in his last three fights, tonight was like his big coming-out party. Moved up to win another title and did it in spectacular fashion. You couldn't do it any better. Like some Ali shit, saying I'm going to knock him out in the first round and viciously knocks him out in the first round. Yeah, I think tonight was his big night. We have a star on our hands.

"It is the goal. We've been trying to get into Spain for a while here. But, yeah, hopefully. That's what I want to do. We'll see if we can get it done."

It’s all about the government contracts.

With this kind of hype-man inconsistency, readers couldn’t be blamed for thinking that I was talking about Dana White potentially blowing UFC’s current media rights negotiation. But they would be wrong. Dana is just along for the ride in 2025. He’s easy enough to criticize, but is no longer the true decision-maker in UFC. Dana’s just a high-priced Brand Ambassador who occasionally gets motivated but is no longer on a 24/7 adrenaline rush.

There are bigger fish to fry.

Despite his best efforts, I don’t think Nakisa Bidarian (with Jake Paul) is much of a threat to TKO. He certainly wasn’t on Saturday night.

The Loyal Opposition… is missing in action

If you didn’t know that Jake Paul was fighting head-to-head against UFC 317, I can’t blame you. Even a majority of people in my orbit had the same reaction.

“The fight’s this week?”

Yes, in their infinite yet strangely maddening wisdom, Nakisa Bidarian and Jake Paul decided to go from fighting Mike Tyson on Netflix… to fighting Julio César Chávez Jr. on DAZN PPV.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what the point of this exercise was.

There must have been a grand plan. A big scheme. Something we were missing. An elaborate extravaganza of an impending mega-fight.

What we were left with, after Saturday night, was Jake Paul winning a unanimous decision in a terrible fight. He didn’t even get a finish.

When it came time to cut the post-match promo — with former Nick Khan client Ariel Helwani holding the microphone — the list of potential names by Jake Paul elicited a giant WTF reaction.

Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez, Badou Jack, Anthony Joshua, and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

This is just embarrassing. Notice that Jake Paul didn’t mention the two most likely opponents on the table — Conor McGregor or KSI.

Right now, TKO has the hammer. In his DAZN post-fight press conference, Nakisa Bidarian was hyping up the fact that Jake Paul’s fight with JCC Jr. drew a $1.57M gate.

By any regular fight business metric, you could be impressed. Then you heard Dana White bragging that UFC 317 drew 19,800 at T-Mobile Arena for a claimed gate of $11.3M. Even with a 10% “promoter’s discount,” that’s still an 8-figure gate for a UFC Las Vegas event. Incredible.

Turki’s Ring publication immediately went on the attack against Nakisa by claiming that tickets for the Jake Paul fight in Anaheim were supposedly discounted to $10:

Watching Turki Alalshikh fighting Nakisa Bidarian over who is more petty is going to be hilarious to watch.

The great irony is that if Turki Alalshikh wants to see Jake Paul fight Conor McGregor or KSI, he is the one man who can make those fights happen. It would be a huge flex for Riyadh Season and Zuffa Boxing. Turki’s big problem is that he would have to overcome his publicly displayed shared hatred of Jake & Nakisa.

However… It would be a beautiful move from Nick Khan if he could convince Turki Alalshikh behind the scenes to finalize Jake Paul vs. KSI or Conor McGregor. In facilitating those fight bookings, you would be eliminating your only high-profile competition and propelling Zuffa Boxing into the mainstream overnight. It would give a huge boost to the new Zuffa Myth PR campaign that TKO is launching right now.

“We make the fights you want to see!”

And why worry about any sort of fear of building up the MVP brand or Nakisa Bidarian? The world saw the outcome of the MVP vs. UFC head-to-head match-up on Saturday night. TKO dominated the night’s proceedings on every single metric.

Nick Khan has been working overtime with both WWE & Zuffa Boxing duties. The man is a machine. He went from dealing with Vince McMahon to now dealing with Turki Alalshikh and Dana White. And when he’s not dealing with that circus, he’s on the road with Triple H — from TV tapings to NXT sessions in Florida to speaking on behalf of TKO at business conferences.

So, if it isn’t Dana White and it isn’t Nick Khan who could screw things up for current UFC media rights negotiations, then who’s left to cause trouble?

The man responsible for ESPN’s loudest talking head

Mark Shapiro. Mr. Cost Savings himself. The Closer.

Right now, we’re watching a… friendly… pissing contest behind the scenes at TKO between two high-powered agents. It’s like watching a new age version of The Apprentice.

There’s Team Nick Khan. Then there’s Team Mark Shapiro.

Mark Shapiro is taking the lead on UFC media rights negotiations. So far, his negotiating performance has been rather peculiar in 2025.

We went from UFC claiming they wanted a billion dollars a year to downplaying expectations about renewing vows with ESPN. Then ESPN 313 arrived, and the divorce looked imminent.

TKO let the exclusive negotiating window with ESPN lapse and went into the open market. TKO has been telegraphing interest with Netflix. Amazon wants in on the PPV business. Warner Bros. Discovery would love to get a piece of the action, but is facing significant financial difficulties.

Meanwhile, ESPN executives Jimmy Pitaro and Matt Kenny have been playing the long game. Carefully and methodically analyzing the situation for the rest of 2025 and heading into 2026. The only thing I can say for certain is that whatever dreams and aspirations Donn Davis has for future PFL TV rights may not pan out.

Based on multiple conversations with key industry sources around Las Vegas for International Fight Week, one message was communicated to us loud and clear: if Nick Khan were in charge of media rights negotiations, a new UFC media rights package would already have been finalized.

By not signing a new media package with ESPN during the exclusive negotiating window, Mark Shapiro took a chance that he could generate more cash for TKO with multiple media partners.

That looked like a great gamble after UFC 311, the wildly successful TKO event at Steve Ballmer’s new Intuit Dome. Then the gamble looked a lot less rosy… up until UFC 317. Ilia Topuria delivered exactly what TKO needed, with all sorts of media executives and first-timers in attendance at T-Mobile Arena.

There are no more excuses for Mark Shapiro.

A competent executive would have a new UFC media rights package signed, sealed, and delivered within the next month.

Per the gossip on the ground in Vegas, the general contours for a framework between TKO and ESPN would supposedly include an increased inventory of APEX events plus an estimated 12 TKO/Zuffa Boxing events.

Dana White telegraphed his interest on Saturday night (again) in producing a larger volume of Dana White’s Contender Series events in Las Vegas. At the heart of the new media rights package would be a large focus on programming from the APEX.

So, what’s the holdup? Is it about squeezing a few extra million? Is it about TKO having an interest in obtaining non-compete clauses despite expressing their own interest in having multiple media partners for UFC rights?

Mark Shapiro taking the lead in negotiations with ESPN is a very interesting move, especially given his track record with Bristol.

For those who don’t know, Mark Shapiro is the agent - slash - representative - slash - corporate advisor for both American cable talking heads Rachel Maddow and Stephen A. Smith.

ESPN viewers are furious at Stephen A. Smith’s outsized role on daily programming. Viewer tensions reached a boiling point during both the NBA finals (solitaire, anyone?) and the NBA Draft. Poor Bob Myers.

SAS is apparently set to be featured on ESPN’s upcoming NFL seasonal programming.

And all the blame for the rise of Stephen A. Smith can be put on Mark Shapiro.

Mark Shapiro is an influential player in helping unleash SAS 24/7 on ESPN and tormenting viewers of The Worldwide Leader of Sports.

The Shapiro media playbook is simple. His clients get everything, including over-exposure.

We’re seeing The Mark Shapiro Media Playbook currently with the expanded roles of Michael Cole and Jon Anik. They are everywhere, handling all sorts of media duties right now. Mr. Anik will be doing the PBP of the Canelo/Crawford fight with Max Kellerman.

Mark Shapiro has some powerful allies, but he also has plenty of enemies who loathe him. ESPN is the last place you will find a universal opinion on Mark Shapiro, good or bad.

Charitably speaking, Mr. Shapiro is what you would call a heater.

Let me use a poker analogy to describe TKO’s current negotiating position with ESPN. Mark Shapiro has pocket Kings and the flop is Queen - Jack - 10. He has an 80% chance of winning what he wants. The only way he can lose is if he screws around and lets his opponent catch a card on the turn or river.

UFC 317 set the stage for TKO to get exactly what they want from ESPN in media rights negotiations. How Mark Shapiro plays his cards — versus how Nick Khan would play that same kind of hand — remains to be seen.

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.