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I don’t watch UFC, but not because I don’t appreciate mixed martial arts. I don’t watch UFC for the same reason I don’t watch WWE: I don’t like how labor is treated by ownership, and it seems neither do the laborers. That’s why fighters are jumping Dana White’s ship to pursue bigger purses offered by Jake Paul and Most Valuable Promotions (MVP). It’s also why White has struggled to replace its aging superstars.
What White’s company has accomplished over the years is impressive. UFC claims more than 700 million fans and 228 million social media followers. Its live events reach nearly one billion households in over 170 countries. The company’s local impact is significant, with headquarters in Las Vegas and employment of hundreds of residents. And UFC events in the Las Vegas valley, along with other arena sports, positively impact the local economy.
That’s why recent setbacks are concerning for both shareholders and local employees alike. The UFC’s biggest star, Conor McGregor, just turned 38 years old–and it showed in his return to the octagon after five years. A non-contact ACL and meniscus injury McGregor apparently sustained in the opening seconds forced a stoppage, and Max Holloway won via TKO in just over a minute. McGregor is reportedly having surgery to repair the injured leg and plans to fight again in 2027 before his UFC contract expires.
McGregor being the biggest draw for UFC is indicative of the state of the business. UFC tried to bring back 39-year-old Ronda Rousey, too, but the promotion didn’t want to set a precedent for guaranteed fighter pay under their new streaming model with Paramount+. That change alone—going from a pay-per-view model to streaming distribution—is indicative of UFC’s changing business dynamics.
Dana White told people that hotels were sold out in Las Vegas due to the “Conor McGregor Effect.” They were not. In fact, there were affordable vacancies at every hotel on the strip. Based on the repetitive job postings for video editors on Teamworkonline.com, UFC has also struggled to retain production employees. As of this writing, there are 13 vacancies at UFC in Las Vegas alone, and 21 globally.
TKO Group Holdings, the group that owns both UFC and WWE, has seen its stock price decline almost 13% year-to-date. Combat sports analyst Luke Thomas told “Pablo Torre Finds Out” that UFC and the sport of mixed martial arts are in a state of noticeable decline, citing the transition into a “right-wing vector” relying on top-down political favors, like the UFC Freedom 250 event held at the White House for President Donald Trump’s birthday, which he ultimately declared a much-needed success for UFC.
Unlike UFC 250, McGregor/Holloway 2 was not a success. It might have gotten a lot of viewers, but there’s been a lot of complaints about streaming lag, ads and logging into Paramount+ taking longer than the fight itself. But UFC’s biggest problem may be the culture. When the best people for the jobs don’t want to work for you, your product suffers, and the UFC product has been suffering since the COVID-19 pandemic, when it benefited from a lack of competition due to the shutdown of the entertainment industry.
TKO had a chance to replace White when he slapped his wife in public and failed to do so. They did, however, end Vince McMahon’s reign over WWE when allegations of sexual abuse, sexual battery and sex trafficking surfaced in 2024. But Brock Lesnar was also named in that lawsuit, and they happily brought him back even after retiring at WrestleMania 42 in April–a show that was more advertisement than entertainment. ESPN seemed to immediately regret paying $1.6 billion to exclusively stream WWE’s premium live events (PLEs) for five years, which is why Wrestlemania 42 was so riddled with advertising. Fan response to the woeful Wrestlemania event are already reflected in the ticket prices for WWE Summerslam in Minneapolis. Floor tickets that went for $2,500 for WWE’s flagship premium live event are now going for $500 for its second-best performing PLE.
Ex-employees of WWE have also alleged that the McMahons knew of “open, rampant abuse” of “ring boys” as young as 12 by ringside announcer Melvin Phillips Jr. in the 1980s and 1990s. Those alleged WWE tragedies occurred well before the merger that brought it under the TKO umbrella, but they are still enough to turn people off to TKO’s entertainment products generally, and perhaps one reason why TKO has such trouble retaining and hiring employees.
All Elite Wrestling (AEW), the lone pro wrestling competitor to WWE in North America, surpassed WWE NXT in viewership with its AEW Dynamite programming for TBS as of Feb. 25, 2026. WWE Smackdown viewership has declined nearly 22% since April 17, while AEW Dynamite viewership has increased nearly 10% over the same time period. We can only take Netflix’s word on WWE Raw viewership, which they most recently estimate at 2.4 million global viewers per week. That’s down from it’s peak of 3.3 million viewers back on April 20, 2026, and viewership has been on the decline since March. Since moving the show to Netflix in January of 2025, WWE Raw has performed as well or slightly better than it did in its final days on USA Network.
WWE struggles less than UFC to retain its superstars. They’ve even taken a few acts, namely The Lucha Bros. and CM Punk, from AEW. UFC, however, pays less money for a more dangerous and shorter career. An average career in UFC is about three years, which is the equivalent to the average career in the NFL, but the NFL season consists of 17 games while the UFC season consists of two or three fights per year. That’s six or seven total opportunities to make some money in UFC before washing out, and those fights don’t pay diddly.
Preliminary card fighters make $12,000 to fight and another $12,000 to win. Main carders and veterans earn between $50,000 and $150,000 per fight, but the five highest-paid UFC fighters in 2022 made just $1.177 million per year. The average NFL salary in 2025 was between $3.2 million and $5.2 million. Comparing UFC to the highest revenue sport in the world isn’t necessarily fair, but when young athletes are given the option to fight for a living or play football and potentially suffer from CTE either way, they’re going to choose football. White isn’t doing enough to inspire young fighters; he’s only recycling the characters who promote their fights better than they actually fight.
While UFC won’t ever sell out every Las Vegas hotel room with any event, and the gambling dollars will likely hold steady, the promotion will be forced move more of its events away from its headquarters to pursue larger ticket margins in areas lacking live entertainment options. White will continue to low-ball his fighters and staff to keep from impacting the TKO stock too much, but the way in which TKO treats its labor, here in Vegas and around the world, and how it takes its viewers for granted, are dangerous tactics that could have devastating impacts on the business and the local Las Vegas economy.