Founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian in 2021, MVP launched with its first event on Saturday August 29th, with a mandate to put fighters first, bring new audiences to combat sports, and create greater opportunities and visibility for women and prospects in boxing.
Five years later, MVP has transformed women’s boxing, delivered record-breaking global audiences, elevated fighter compensation and built a global combat sports platform spanning boxing and MMA.
NEW YORK, NY (August 29, 2026) Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the global combat sports company founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian, today celebrates its fifth anniversary, marking five years since launching its first event on August 29th, 2021 with a mandate to disrupt the traditional fight business by putting fighters first, creating greater economic opportunities for athletes, bringing a new generation of fans to combat sports and creating unprecedented opportunities and visibility for women and prospects in boxing.
Five years later, MVP has grown from a disruptive boxing startup into a global combat sports platform spanning boxing and MMA, with nearly 400 athletes, global media relationships reaching fans across more than 170 countries and a track record of historic fighter paydays, record-breaking events and some of the largest audiences in combat sports history.
MVP began putting that vision into action with its first event on August 29, 2021, when Jake Paul faced former UFC champion Tyron Woodley in Cleveland, Ohio on a ShowtimePPV that featured Amanda Serrano as the co-main event. From its first fight, MVP sought to challenge the traditional boxing model by combining elite competition with athlete-driven promotion, social media, storytelling and entertainment to bring a new generation of fans into combat sports and focusing on women’s boxing.
Just weeks after its inaugural event, MVP signed seven-division world champion Amanda Serrano as its first athlete, making the growth of women’s boxing central to the company from its earliest days. MVP set out to provide Serrano and other female fighters with the compensation, visibility, promotion and platforms historically reserved for the biggest male stars in boxing.
That mission reached a historic and rapid milestone in April 2022, when Serrano faced Katie Taylor in the first women’s boxing match to headline Madison Square Garden, with the fighters earning the first seven-figure purses in women’s boxing history and the event setting a then-record for women’s boxing viewership on DAZN with 1.5 million viewers. The landmark event demonstrated the global commercial appeal of women’s boxing and began a rivalry that would become one of the defining trilogies in modern combat sports.
Over the next two years, MVP continued expanding its model beyond individual blockbuster events, growing its roster of champions and prospects and launching Most Valuable Prospects to create consistent opportunities, visibility and development pathways for emerging fighters.
At the same time, Jake Paul established himself as one of combat sports’ biggest draws, setting boxing or combat sports gate records at major venues across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, including Cleveland, Glendale, Tampa, Orlando, Dallas and San Juan, a record-setting run that would eventually include an $18.1 million gate for Paul vs. Tyson at AT&T Stadium and the biggest boxing gate in Honda Center history for Paul vs. Julio César Chávez Jr.
In October 2023, Serrano faced Danila Ramos in the first women’s unified world championship bout contested over 12 three-minute rounds, equal to the men’s championship standard. Ahead of the fight, Serrano and Ramos issued the “CHOICE” statement, supported by 25 leading female fighters, advocating for women to have the option to compete under the same championship rules as men. Two years later, MVP’s Alycia Baumgardner became the second unified women’s champion to defend her titles over 12 three-minute rounds.
In November 2024, MVP partnered with Netflix to bring Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium to an unprecedented global audience. Paul vs. Tyson, the first professional live sporting event on Netflix, became the most-streamed global sporting event ever, reaching 125 million viewers. The event represented the culmination of MVP’s strategy to combine combat sports with culture, entertainment and modern global distribution to reach audiences far beyond traditional boxing fans. On the same night, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano met for the second time in a historic co-main event that averaged 74 million live viewers globally and became the most-viewed professional women’s sporting match in U.S. history. The fight further demonstrated that women’s boxing could command one of the largest audiences in all of sports when given the platform, promotion and investment it deserved.
MVP continued breaking barriers in July 2025 with Taylor vs. Serrano 3, which headlined an all-women’s professional boxing card at a sold-out Madison Square Garden. The event broke the official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the most world championship belts ever contested on a single fight card, male or female, with 17 world titles, completing one of boxing’s defining modern trilogies while showcasing women’s boxing at an unprecedented scale.
The company’s fighter-first philosophy has been particularly visible through Serrano, who became the first Puerto Rican undisputed world champion, male or female, a seven-division world champion, the highest-paid female boxer in history and MVP’s first lifetime combat sports signee. Serrano will serve as Chairwoman of MVP’s women’s boxing initiatives following her in-ring retirement, continuing the mission she and MVP began together in 2021.
In 2026, MVP took its commitment to women’s boxing to the next level with the launch of MVPW, its year-round global platform dedicated to the sport, with ESPN serving as its U.S. home and Sky Sports as its UK home. MVPW has assembled a global roster of world champions, contenders, Olympians and emerging stars while creating a consistent schedule and dedicated platform for elite women’s boxing.
MVP continued expanding how and where fans can experience the sport in August 2026, when Amanda Serrano headlined Serrano vs. Manzur as MVP brought world championship boxing to TikTok LIVE for the first time. The event reflected a strategy that has been central to MVP since its founding: meeting the next generation of fans on the platforms where they consume content and creating new distribution opportunities and audiences for fighters.
Jake Paul, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, said:
Five years ago, Nakisa and I started MVP because the fight business was broken. Fighters were being underpaid, women weren’t getting the opportunities they deserved, promoters were stuck doing things the same way they had for decades, and the sport wasn’t connecting with the next generation of fans. We said we were going to change that, and five years later, the results speak for themselves. We’ve broken records, created some of the biggest events in sports, helped fighters become global stars and proved that putting athletes first is also good business. But this is still day one. The next five years are going to make the first five look small.
Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, said:
Everything MVP has accomplished over the past five years has been built around one fundamental principle: create more value for fighters and fans. We have demonstrated that combat sports can reach massive global audiences when elite competition is combined with compelling storytelling, modern distribution and a fighter-first business model. We have helped transform the economics and visibility of women’s boxing, built events that have reached audiences at a scale few believed possible and created a platform where athletes can build meaningful careers and global brands. Five years in, our ambition is significantly greater than when we started. The combination of MVP and PFL gives us a bigger platform and a greater opportunity than we could have imagined when we launched MVP in 2021. We are building the premier global home for combat sports.
MVP entered its next phase of growth in 2026 with its expansion into mixed martial arts. MVP MMA 1, headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano from Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, reached nearly 17 million live viewers globally on Netflix. In the United States, the triple-main card averaged 9.3 million viewers and peaked at 11.6 million viewers during the main event, making it the most-watched MMA event ever in the U.S. and demonstrating MVP’s ability to extend its event model and audience engine beyond boxing.
That evolution accelerated further with the combination of MVP and Professional Fighters League (PFL), bringing together MVP’s audience engine, athlete roster, storytelling capabilities, live event expertise and leadership in boxing with PFL’s elite global MMA roster, league infrastructure and international distribution footprint. The combined company operates under the MVP banner, bringing together nearly 400 athletes across boxing and MMA and creating a global combat sports platform reaching fans in more than 170 countries.
Five years later, MVP celebrates its anniversary the same way it began, by putting women’s boxing on a global stage. What started with Amanda Serrano in the co-main event of MVP’s first pay-per-view in 2021, at a time when few in boxing understood why women’s boxing was central to MVP’s vision, has grown into MVPW-06: UK vs. USA, headlined tonight by a pound-for-pound clash between Mikaela Mayer and Chantelle Cameron, and featuring the best of women’s boxing, live on Sky Sports in the UK and ESPN in the U.S. Five years ago, MVP set out to build the future of combat sports. Five years later, that future has arrived. Welcome to MVP.
For more information, follow on X via @MostVPromotions, or on Instagram via @MostValuablePromotions.
About MVP
Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) is a global combat sports and entertainment company built for the next generation of athletes and fans. The company operates across boxing, mixed martial arts, live events, media, content, athlete development, and global distribution, with a fighter-first philosophy centered on equitable compensation, maximum visibility, and long-term brand building.
Led by co-founders Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian and Chief Executive Officer John Martin and backed by founding investors 885 Capital & Knighthead, MVP promotes some of the world’s biggest combat sports events and represents a roster of nearly 400 elite athletes, including world champions, titleholders, contenders, and emerging stars. MVP’s portfolio includes MVP, MVPW, and MVP MMA, bringing together premier boxing and mixed martial arts properties under one global brand.
Through partnerships with leading media and distribution platforms including Netflix, ESPN, Sky Sports, and an extensive international network reaching fans across more than 170 countries, MVP delivers world-class competition and entertainment to audiences worldwide. By combining elite athletes, premium live events, compelling storytelling, and global media reach, MVP is building the future of combat sports.
Press Contacts
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