The UFC is the world leader in MMA and one of the most recognizable brands in sports worldwide. However, that was not always the case. A few individuals such as Joe Rogan have played a crucial role early on to make the UFC what it is today. Unbeknownst to many, Shaquille O’Neal also had a similar role in the success of the UFC early on.
UFC President Dana White recently joined ‘Superman’ on the latest episode of his podcast, ‘The Big Podcast with Shaq’, where he revealed a story of how O’Neal played a crucial role in the success of the UFC in its nascent stages.
Speaking about Shaq’s ad for the Ultimate Fighter, he said:
“Here’s the story, Shaq did a lot of very good things for us early on when we were trying to build the UFC… So when we were launching the Ultimate Fighter, Shaq came in and laid down one of the baddest commercials for the Ultimate Fighter that you will ever see. And what is crazy is when we went in to film it, he did it in one take.”
View this post on Instagram
White has mentioned in interviews many times how the Ultimate Fighter and its success ultimately saved the UFC. Without that show and the climactic fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar, the UFC wouldn’t have made it.
There have been a lot of pivotal moments in UFC’s early days that helped it grow. Donald Trump provided them with his hotels to organize the fights in, Joe Rogan commentated for free, Shaq did the advertising and Griffin vs Bonnar was so good that the fight went viral when the term was just used to describe a fever!
Of course, since then there have been several key events and moments that have shaped the UFC into what it is today with another potentially taking place later this year.
The Sphere to take UFC to new heights
The Sphere is a newly opened state of the art immersive arena in Las Vegas. Videos from inside the arena have been going viral on social media and Dana White is having the arena host UFC 306 and has some mega fights lined up for the same.
In interviews White has hyped up the event as the greatest live sports show ever to be put on. In order to do so, the 53-year-old is putting his money where his mouth is by spending $17 million on the venue before a single punch has been thrown.
Now, only time will tell if the event at the Sphere will have a similar impact on the growth of the UFC as the Ultimate Fighter did early on. Because if fans are being honest, UFC cards have arguably fallen a bit, so maybe this is just the pick up they need.
