Davie met Rorion Gracie in 1991 while researching martial arts copa mundial for a marketing client. Gracie operated a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school in Torrance, California and also the Gracie family had a long good reputation for vale tudo matches?a precursor of mma in Brazil. Davie became Gracie’s student.
In 1992, inspired by the Gracies in Action video-series produced by the Gracies and including Gracie jiu-jitsu defeating various martial-arts masters, Davie proposed to Rorion Gracie and John Milius an eight-man, single-elimination tournament having a title of War from the Worlds. The tournament would feature mma fighters from different disciplines facing one another in no-holds-barred combat to determine what martial-art was actually the best which replicated the excitement from the matches Davie saw on those videos.[5] Milius, a noted film director and screenwriter, in addition to a Gracie student, decided to function as the event’s creative director. Davie drafted the business plan and twenty-eight investors contributed the initial capital to start WOW Promotions with the intent to build up the tournament into a television franchise
In 1993 WOW Promotions sought a tv partner and approached pay-per-view producers TVKO (HBO), SET (Showtime) and also the Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). Both TVKO and hang declined, but SEG ? an innovator in pay-per-view television which had produced such off-beat events as a mixed-gender mercurial superfly pas cher tennis match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova ? became WOW’s partner in May 1993. SEG contacted video and film art-director Jason Cusson to design the trademarked “Octagon”, a signature piece for that event. Cusson remained the Production Designer through UFC 27. SEG devised the name for the show because the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Inspired by vale tudo competitions in Brazil, the UFC held its first competition in Denver, Colorado in 1993. Showcasing fighters of various proficiencies?including boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling and Kick boxing, amongst others?the UFC sought to recognize the most effective martial art in a real fight. After a period of political backlash, the UFC gradually underwent reform by embracing stricter rules and having sanctioning with State Athletic Commissions.
With a cable-television deal and expansion into Canada, Europe and new markets within the United States, the UFC by 2010 has gained in popularity, along with greater mainstream-media coverage. By 2010 viewers can access UFC programming on pay-per-view television, Spike in the usa and Canada chaussures de foot pas cher, on ESPN in the uk as well as in 33 other countries worldwide.