UFC Fight Pass to add libraries from eight different MMA companies

UFC Fight Pass announced Saturday the acquisition of a number of videotape libraries that will be slowly added this year to the streaming service.

The additions are particularly important for those within to see the history and evolution of mixed martial arts in different forms from around the world, highlighted by the complete Pancrase library.

Pancrase, the Japanese promotion that started in 1993 shortly before the UFC, it and still runs regularly today. It featured some of the legendary matches in the early days of the sport. The original shows saw many of the pioneers of the sport in action, including  Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Bas Rutten, Guy Mezger, Maurice Smith, Oleg Taktarov and Japanese pioneers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki. The complete library also features star modern fighters such as Josh Barnett, Jose Aldo, Nate Marquardt, Yuki Kondo, Jake Shields and Chael Sonnen. Its history includes an evolution of styles from its early days of doing what was essentially unscripted and non-predetermined pro wrestling (although there were a few early worked matches), with rope breaks on submissions and fighters wearing boots and tights, to slowly morphing into the modern MMA rules. The promotion briefly appeared on U.S. pay-per-view, and before the emergence of Pride, was Japan’s leading fight promotion.

The deals also include, for the companies like Pancrase who still run shows, rights to all future footage. The deals also include the possibilities of more live events going forward with the promotions deals were cut with.

When all the footage is added, and it will be a slow rollout, starting in the spring, the new deals will expand the service’s fight library from its current 5,000 fights to approximately 13,000. And that number should increase since several more deals are in the process of being negotiated.

“One of the things when we launched Fight Pass is we knew we were going to continue to look at the product, together with the fans,” said Marshall Zelaznik, UFC’s Chief Content Officer, whose many hats in the company include being in charge of the service. “We working together to bring value to the fans and we haven’t stopped in that endeavor. Last year we added Invicta, which has been a great success for us. It was great to see the fan response. We added airing the Nevada Athletic Commission hearings, which we feel hit a chord with the hardcore fans.”

Besides Pancrase, the newly acquired libraries feature some of the biggest names in the sport in early career fights.

Cage Rage, from the United Kingdom, was that country’s leading promotion at one time, running from 2002 to 2008. It was purchased by Pro Elite, and then Pro Elite fell apart and Cage Rage lost its television deal with Sky Sports and folded. Anderson Silva is the biggest name who fought for the promotion, shortly before he signed with UFC, including once beating Lee Murray. Other names in their tape library include Michael Bisping, Melvin Manhoef, Chris Lytle, Ken Shamrock, Vitor Belfort, Paul Daley, Tank Abbott, Matt Lindland, Tom “Kong” Watson, Antonio Silva, Dan Severn, Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Phil Baroni.

After it closed, Dave O’Donnell, one of the original owners of Cage Rage, created Ultimate Challenge MMA (UCMMA), to take its place. They’ve run 41 events in the last seven years, which have included fights like Jimi Manuwa, Watson, Pickett, James McSweeney, Paul Kelly, Oli Thompson and  Ross Pointon.

Extreme Challenge was the brainchild of noted MMA agent Monte Cox. It is the longest running promotion in the U.S. with the exception of the UFC, debuting in 1996, at a time when MMA events were few. It has run in the neighborhood of 200 events in its history, mostly in Iowa and the Midwest. When the Pat Miletich camp was the dominant team in MMA, virtually all of its fighters got their start with this group, and early stars of the promotion included Jeremy Horn, Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia, Dan Severn and Robbie Lawler.

The X-treme Fighting Organization, or XFO, is a group based out of Chicago. It has run 54 events, dating back to 2004. Fighters like Sonnen, Clay Guida and Jamie Varner fought there early in their careers.

HooknShoot, run by former UFC announcer Jeff Osborne, is an Evansville, Ind.-based group that has run 68 shows dating back to the 90s. From an historical perspective, HooknShoot was the first promotion that heavily featured women fighters, even doing all-women’s shows. It featured early career fights of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Jens Pulver, Jon Fitch, Frank Mir, Miesha Tate and Shayna Baszler. Osborne had revealed selling his tape collection to the UFC back in September in social media posts, but since then had not commented on it.

King of the Cage, founded by Terry Trebilcock, was the big promotion in California, running at Native American reservations, dating back to 1998. It expanded throughout North America. Among the names who fought in the promotion during its history include Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Dan Severn, Daniel Cormier, Rory MacDonald, Urijah Faber, and three current UFC champions, T.J.. Dillashaw, Robbie Lawler and Demetrious Johnson.

TKO Promotions, based in Montreal, ran only eight shows in eight years, but it was the promotion that built the sport in Montreal, which has been one of UFC’s hottest markets. The promotion is most notable for early career fights of Georges St-Pierre, Patrick Cote, Sam Stout, Pete Spratt and Mark Hominick.

Zelaznik said the acquisitions have come in different ways.

“We started to be approached by other promotions,” he said. “We also reached out to the promotions. Joe Silva (UFC matchmaker who followed the sport from the UFC inception in 1993) put together a list of the top promotions that would be of interest to fans like him, and we tried to acquire a bunch of the libraries.

The above list only a partial list of what will be added in upcoming months.

Sources from Japan have noted negotiations have taken place over the past months involving trying to acquire the tape library of K-1, which would include the highest profile kickboxing events of the last two decades, as well as MMA shows that aired on network television in Japan under the banner of Dream and Hero’s.

Dana White, in the past, had talked about the potential of Fight Pass including footage of non-MMA combat sports.  

Another library that has been negotiated with is that of RINGS, a Japanese pro wrestling/MMA group that also had national television exposure in Japan. But finalizing deals with Japanese groups, particularly those who were big on national television there at one time, are very complicated.

RINGS brought fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Dan Henderson to prominence, and also featured fights with major names like Hughes, Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock and Pat Miletich, as well as the only pro wrestling match in the career of  three-time Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Alexander Karelin.

“There are deals where paper has been exchanged, but we couldn’t get the deals done before this announcement,” said Zelaznik. “

“There will be other deals to come and when they’re completed, we’ll figure out the right time to announce them.”

The UFC has had a policy to not release the number of subscribers to the service. Zelaznik said that the company has in its first year blown away its most aggressive estimates before starting the service. He noted that they currently have at least one subscriber in 165 different countries, and that when there is a major live show, like the Nov. 7, Bisping vs. Luke Rockhold show from Australia, that virtually every Fight Pass subscriber watched at least some of the show within 48 hours.

“It’s almost 100 percent,” said Zelaznik. “It’s scary high, and that’s really good news. That means people are finding value in the product.”

He also said the churn rate (those who have subscribed and then dropped the service) is far lower than is typical in the streaming subscription entertainment industry. 

Currently Fight Pass airs all UFC events that aren’t on American television, usually overseas shows, as well as the early prelims from nearly every show, and Invicta events live.

Zelaznik said they are looking at adding more live content, perhaps from the groups they’ve made deals with that are still in existence, but nothing is definitive at this point. But for the promotions they have under contract, if they don’t run the events live, they expect to have the fight footage available on Fight Pass within a short period of time.

Fight Pass already includes fight libraries of Strikeforce (although not the last few years that Showtime still has rights to broadcast exclusively for a certain period of time), Pride, WFA, WEC, Elite XC and UFC among others. The goal is to have every fight that has ever been taped involving the biggest stars in history.

UFC Fight Pass announced Saturday the acquisition of a number of videotape libraries that will be slowly added this year to the streaming service.

The additions are particularly important for those within to see the history and evolution of mixed martial arts in different forms from around the world, highlighted by the complete Pancrase library.

Pancrase, the Japanese promotion that started in 1993 shortly before the UFC, it and still runs regularly today. It featured some of the legendary matches in the early days of the sport. The original shows saw many of the pioneers of the sport in action, including  Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Bas Rutten, Guy Mezger, Maurice Smith, Oleg Taktarov and Japanese pioneers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki. The complete library also features star modern fighters such as Josh Barnett, Jose Aldo, Nate Marquardt, Yuki Kondo, Jake Shields and Chael Sonnen. Its history includes an evolution of styles from its early days of doing what was essentially unscripted and non-predetermined pro wrestling (although there were a few early worked matches), with rope breaks on submissions and fighters wearing boots and tights, to slowly morphing into the modern MMA rules. The promotion briefly appeared on U.S. pay-per-view, and before the emergence of Pride, was Japan’s leading fight promotion.

The deals also include, for the companies like Pancrase who still run shows, rights to all future footage. The deals also include the possibilities of more live events going forward with the promotions deals were cut with.

When all the footage is added, and it will be a slow rollout, starting in the spring, the new deals will expand the service’s fight library from its current 5,000 fights to approximately 13,000. And that number should increase since several more deals are in the process of being negotiated.

“One of the things when we launched Fight Pass is we knew we were going to continue to look at the product, together with the fans,” said Marshall Zelaznik, UFC’s Chief Content Officer, whose many hats in the company include being in charge of the service. “We working together to bring value to the fans and we haven’t stopped in that endeavor. Last year we added Invicta, which has been a great success for us. It was great to see the fan response. We added airing the Nevada Athletic Commission hearings, which we feel hit a chord with the hardcore fans.”

Besides Pancrase, the newly acquired libraries feature some of the biggest names in the sport in early career fights.

Cage Rage, from the United Kingdom, was that country’s leading promotion at one time, running from 2002 to 2008. It was purchased by Pro Elite, and then Pro Elite fell apart and Cage Rage lost its television deal with Sky Sports and folded. Anderson Silva is the biggest name who fought for the promotion, shortly before he signed with UFC, including once beating Lee Murray. Other names in their tape library include Michael Bisping, Melvin Manhoef, Chris Lytle, Ken Shamrock, Vitor Belfort, Paul Daley, Tank Abbott, Matt Lindland, Tom “Kong” Watson, Antonio Silva, Dan Severn, Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Phil Baroni.

After it closed, Dave O’Donnell, one of the original owners of Cage Rage, created Ultimate Challenge MMA (UCMMA), to take its place. They’ve run 41 events in the last seven years, which have included fights like Jimi Manuwa, Watson, Pickett, James McSweeney, Paul Kelly, Oli Thompson and  Ross Pointon.

Extreme Challenge was the brainchild of noted MMA agent Monte Cox. It is the longest running promotion in the U.S. with the exception of the UFC, debuting in 1996, at a time when MMA events were few. It has run in the neighborhood of 200 events in its history, mostly in Iowa and the Midwest. When the Pat Miletich camp was the dominant team in MMA, virtually all of its fighters got their start with this group, and early stars of the promotion included Jeremy Horn, Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia, Dan Severn and Robbie Lawler.

The X-treme Fighting Organization, or XFO, is a group based out of Chicago. It has run 54 events, dating back to 2004. Fighters like Sonnen, Clay Guida and Jamie Varner fought there early in their careers.

HooknShoot, run by former UFC announcer Jeff Osborne, is an Evansville, Ind.-based group that has run 68 shows dating back to the 90s. From an historical perspective, HooknShoot was the first promotion that heavily featured women fighters, even doing all-women’s shows. It featured early career fights of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Jens Pulver, Jon Fitch, Frank Mir, Miesha Tate and Shayna Baszler. Osborne had revealed selling his tape collection to the UFC back in September in social media posts, but since then had not commented on it.

King of the Cage, founded by Terry Trebilcock, was the big promotion in California, running at Native American reservations, dating back to 1998. It expanded throughout North America. Among the names who fought in the promotion during its history include Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Dan Severn, Daniel Cormier, Rory MacDonald, Urijah Faber, and three current UFC champions, T.J.. Dillashaw, Robbie Lawler and Demetrious Johnson.

TKO Promotions, based in Montreal, ran only eight shows in eight years, but it was the promotion that built the sport in Montreal, which has been one of UFC’s hottest markets. The promotion is most notable for early career fights of Georges St-Pierre, Patrick Cote, Sam Stout, Pete Spratt and Mark Hominick.

Zelaznik said the acquisitions have come in different ways.

“We started to be approached by other promotions,” he said. “We also reached out to the promotions. Joe Silva (UFC matchmaker who followed the sport from the UFC inception in 1993) put together a list of the top promotions that would be of interest to fans like him, and we tried to acquire a bunch of the libraries.

The above list only a partial list of what will be added in upcoming months.

Sources from Japan have noted negotiations have taken place over the past months involving trying to acquire the tape library of K-1, which would include the highest profile kickboxing events of the last two decades, as well as MMA shows that aired on network television in Japan under the banner of Dream and Hero’s.

Dana White, in the past, had talked about the potential of Fight Pass including footage of non-MMA combat sports.  

Another library that has been negotiated with is that of RINGS, a Japanese pro wrestling/MMA group that also had national television exposure in Japan. But finalizing deals with Japanese groups, particularly those who were big on national television there at one time, are very complicated.

RINGS brought fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Dan Henderson to prominence, and also featured fights with major names like Hughes, Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock and Pat Miletich, as well as the only pro wrestling match in the career of  three-time Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Alexander Karelin.

“There are deals where paper has been exchanged, but we couldn’t get the deals done before this announcement,” said Zelaznik. “

“There will be other deals to come and when they’re completed, we’ll figure out the right time to announce them.”

The UFC has had a policy to not release the number of subscribers to the service. Zelaznik said that the company has in its first year blown away its most aggressive estimates before starting the service. He noted that they currently have at least one subscriber in 165 different countries, and that when there is a major live show, like the Nov. 7, Bisping vs. Luke Rockhold show from Australia, that virtually every Fight Pass subscriber watched at least some of the show within 48 hours.

“It’s almost 100 percent,” said Zelaznik. “It’s scary high, and that’s really good news. That means people are finding value in the product.”

He also said the churn rate (those who have subscribed and then dropped the service) is far lower than is typical in the streaming subscription entertainment industry. 

Currently Fight Pass airs all UFC events that aren’t on American television, usually overseas shows, as well as the early prelims from nearly every show, and Invicta events live.

Zelaznik said they are looking at adding more live content, perhaps from the groups they’ve made deals with that are still in existence, but nothing is definitive at this point. But for the promotions they have under contract, if they don’t run the events live, they expect to have the fight footage available on Fight Pass within a short period of time.

Fight Pass already includes fight libraries of Strikeforce (although not the last few years that Showtime still has rights to broadcast exclusively for a certain period of time), Pride, WFA, WEC, Elite XC and UFC among others. The goal is to have every fight that has ever been taped involving the biggest stars in history.