Will Abu Dhabi use UFC to monopolize Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

The unstoppable combination of UFC, Dana White, Mark Zuckerberg, Mikey Musumeci, and Abu Dhabi.

Remember when the Craig Jones Invitational was the talk of the combat sports world?

Huge social media numbers. Almost everyone in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ecosystem picked sides in a hostile civil war. On one side CJI. On the other, the old-school Abu Dhabi Combat Club.

ADCC has been around since the mid-90s. Before social media took over internet communications, web sites and e-mail chains were a real thing. ADCC’s web site hired writers like Kid Peligro, who were top of the food chain at the time. It was real news reporting and opinion gathering.

Ultimately, ADCC was surpassed by Sherdog as a news shop — but Abu Dhabi Combat Club itself loomed large in the sport.

Then came UFC and suddenly you had a proliferation of McDojos everywhere. Eddie Bravo took over the scene and his 10th Planet BJJ gym system was ready to capitalize on the Gracie marketing machine. As with everything in the fight business, fragmentation and civil wars broke out. 10th Planet didn’t become McDonalds but it certainly remains a force in today’s scene.

With the Gracie family myth on its last legs and elder statesmen in the family working with Guy Ritchie to memorialize and celebrate everything the Gracie family did to popularize and evangelize grappling throughout the world, we live in very interesting times.

Abu Dhabi, which dominated the grappling scene and invited some of the biggest names in the world to travel to teach seminars as ADCC ambassadors, suddenly finds itself in a very different position as we head into 2025.

ONE capitalized on the grappling phenomenon with prodigies Mikey Musumeci and Kade & Tye Ruotolo. Guys that made Shinya Aoki look like amateurs. However, ONE’s retreat from MMA and Singapore to Muay Thai and Thailand has dramatically changed the scene. The straw that broke that camel’s back was Mikey Musumeci nearly dying trying to make weight for a last-minute fight in Colorado. He would soon exit the promotion.

Meanwhile, Craig Jones set the grappling scene on fire by going head-to-head against ADCC. We had dueling grappling competitions, one at the T-Mobile Arena and the other at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Where did all of this money come from? Where did it go? How much did everyone really make?

We were left with a lot more questions than answers after the two grappling promotions went head-to-head. The only certainty that is Abu Dhabi lost face.

What we know is that the fallout was swift. Last month, Mo Jassim — the head of Abu Dhabi Combat Club — resigned as ADCC head organizer.

What is the future of ADCC moving forward?

The importance of BJJ to Abu Dhabi is serious business. So, for someone — or some nation-state? — to bankroll Craig Jones to go after ADCC is a big deal. We still don’t know who bankrolled Craig Jones. Nobody’s bothered to find out who or why.

Abu Dhabi’s investment in the fight business has evolved over the last few decades. First, it was Abu Dhabi with ADCC.

Second, it was Flash Entertainment buying a percentage of UFC after Lorenzo Fertitta worked out an arrangement with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed. (Flash would sell its stake in UFC in 2018.)

And now Abu Dhabi, via Mubadala Investment Company, is the major backer of the UFC’s parent company.

Even with Abu Dhabi owning UFC, ADCC’s loss of face stung. Who was backing Craig Jones and why? The public doesn’t know those answers but you would be a fool to believe that Abu Dhabi would let this go unanswered.

And last Thursday night, right before UFC 309, the public received a very interesting message from Dana White.

"Over the course of the last year, I've been working on developing the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu program in the world. I'm excited to announce that we've resigned Mikey Musumeci to the first ever exclusive BJJ promotional agreement in the company's history.

If you don't know, Mikey is considered by many to be the best BJJ player in the world and he is a multiple-time world champion and unbeaten over the past eight years at 135 pounds.

This will be the first of many we will sign over the coming months. Mikey will make his Fight Pass Invitational debut against Felipe Machado, live December 5th from Las Vegas at the APEX and you can watch it live on UFC Fight Pass."

A couple of weeks ago during the TKO conference call with Wall Street investors, Endeavor COO Mark Shapiro telegraphed that they would make a significant play to grab as much content as possible in the fight space to ramp up the footprint of UFC Fight Pass. It may very well end up being a much more diversified version of the WWE Network.

Right now, TKO has unique relationships with promoters who air programming on Fight Pass. They cut the checks. If TKO starts signing their own grappling stars and increasing their own event portfolio, it will maximize leverage over the promoters on Fight Pass to play ball on UFC’s terms and conditions — or else.

This is all a leverage play and a bunch of independent actors could get squashed in a hurry. It will make Vince McMahon swallowing up the wrestling territories look like a walk in the park.

The real kicker from Dana White’s comments is that UFC has been working on this BJJ project for a year.

What is UFC, Endeavor, and the financiers in Abu Dhabi interest in expanding their MMA monopoly into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

First, it’s not a surprise that TKO is expanding their monopoly plans and going all-in after Judge Richard Boulware granted preliminary approval of their $375 million dollar antitrust settlement with fighters. The antitrust settlement, as Nick Khan might describe it, is a minor encumbrance.

Second, Donald Trump’s big electoral win — and sweep of both the US Senate and House — means Ari Emanuel has total political and regulatory protection. He has assets all over the Trump 2.0 government who will help his business affairs and provide protection from further antitrust scrutiny.

Third, TKO has been seeking live sports events in which the margins are very high and the cost of production is cheap. The growing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu scene helps build their portfolio. There is a significant number of teenagers and 20-somethings who train in BJJ and have little or no interest in the current UFC product.

The gap between BJJ and MMA is widening. Now, UFC has a change to bring those fans into the TKO fold by taking over the promotional aspect of the BJJ scene. Grab the biggest and best personalities in BJJ at a fraction of the cost that it would take to retain the services of someone like, let’s say, Francis Ngannou.

There are stars in the grappling world that have their own audiences that UFC desperately wants to reach out to. Endeavor understands the value of star power but doesn’t want to pay top dollar for it. Also, Endeavor has had a very mixed track record at making big mainstream, larger-than-life stars in the MMA space over the last few years.

Fourth, BJJ is a perfect sporting activity for UFC from a regulatory perspective. There are no licensing issues. They can go anywhere and everywhere. TKO can expand their operations quickly to pair up with world governments — like Brazil, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia — and achieve First Mover monopoly status. There’s no one else who can compete with TKO’s bank roll.

We don’t know what specific LLC or holding company or promotional vehicle BJJ stars will be signing contracts with to work with UFC but what we do know is that the combination of Abu Dhabi & Wall Street money makes this a big deal.

And part of that equation is excitement from Mikey Musumeci’s very famous celebrity training partner, Mark Zuckerberg.

UFC and Meta already have close business ties. UFC just signed a brand new AI deal with IBM. And now we have Mikey Musumeci signing a contract with a business network that includes Abu Dhabi, Mark Zuckerberg, Dana White, TKO investors, and the support of the Trump administration.

What the Abu Dhabi government may not be able to achieve with ADCC, they will be able to achieve through UFC to expand the TKO empire. Monopolization of BJJ world-wide. Too Big To Fail.

I would not be surprised to hear a future announcement that TKO has either acquired Abu Dhabi Combat Club or has reached a “management fee” agreement to oversee future ADCC events. You could conceivably see a “regular season” series at the APEX and other UFC-aligned venues, with ADCC being promoted by TKO in a mass-marketing campaign as The Super Bowl or Champion’s League of BJJ if you will.

Will Mr. Zuckerberg financially sponsor or promote TKO-related grappling events? It’s certainly a possibility.

It’s a very plausible scenario to see UFC-branded grappling events packaged with UFC, WWE, Power Slap, and other TKO entities for a Fight Week package in government contract deals.

Every major BJJ organizational body or event organizer will quickly fall into line behind TKO, much in the same way that Turki Alalshikh has quickly gotten sanctioning bodies to fall in line behind him in boxing.

Grabbing Generation Z

If you were disheartened by the political circus that was UFC 309 at MSG, understand one key point — this is entirely a scripted and calculated move by Endeavor.

Endeavor saw the power of Tiktok and Generation Z in solidifying Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

You may be finished with MMA. You might stop watching MMA. You might stop reading MMA articles or watching MMA videos. You might even stop reading us as frequently. (Please don’t do that. I’ll have a future pep talk for you on why you should keep the faith moving forward.)

The thing is, Endeavor doesn’t mind if you exit stage right. In fact, they would probably be downright gleeful to replace you with some 20-something male who doesn’t know any better and is willing to be a shallow customer for the next 2-4 years. And if those 20-somethings actually convert into long-term Endeavor-flavored fans, even better.

Part of this conversion process is grabbing as many 20-somethings as possible and replacing the Milennial and Generation X fans. Many of those 20-somethings happen to be engaged in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu scene. As William Watts at Open Note Grappling recently joked, “Jiujitsu teachers will soon usurp pool boys, nannies, and more. Our moment in the sun is rapidly approaching.”

In a Tuesday article at Open Note Grappling, our BJJ professor had a warning to his fellow readers about UFC’s future in the grappling scene:

2025 will be about building a brand. The UFC is going to start signing more and more athletes to exclusive contracts. The UFC’s Fight Pass Invitational will be the place to compete.

2026 will be about other promotions fighting back or fizzling out. You can’t maintain a professional grappling promotion if the best grapplers are on exclusive contracts elsewhere. Maybe some promotions will try to sign their own exclusive contracts. Maybe some athletes will want flexible grappling contracts. Either way, many promotions will start losing whatever relevance they have, or want to develop.

2027 will be about signing ADCC. A source reached out to me to say FloGrappling’s ADCC contract runs through 2026. At that point ADCC will be negotiating with other streaming platforms. There is no reason to think Flo will be able to outbid the UFC.

Where does this leave Craig Jones and his financial backer(s)? We don’t know. Did his financial backers understand the chain of events that his disruption in the grappling scene would reveal? Is he a hero, a bystander, or an unwitting villain in what quickly looks like to be an unfolding corporate monopolization of what had been a very non-corporate grappling scene?

I’ve cautioned readers over the last two years that the impact of world governments as the main promoters in the fight business would have severe consequences. The rest of this decade is going to reveal some very profitable, yet harsh truths about who the runs the show in fight sports — and why.

Zach Arnold is a lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw on Substack. His archives can be read at FightOpinion.com.