Most Valuable Promotions and the Professional Fighters League have merged under the MVP banner, putting PFL MMA on a new track with John Martin named CEO of the combined company. Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian will serve as co-founders and board members while the organization folds boxing and MMA into one combat sports business.
John Martin leads MVP
John Martin will oversee the combined company after years spent at Turner, where he served as Chairman and CEO and previously managed TNT, TBS,, and Turner Sports. He also served as Chief Financial Officer of Time Warner. For a merger that blends live combat sports, media assets, and distribution, that background points to a company being run as much for content reach as for fights.
Jake Paul will continue leveraging his platform, audience, and cultural influence across the business, while Bidarian keeps responsibility for MVP's boxing business and blockbuster live events. The split of duties matters because the new structure is not a simple brand swap; it assigns the public face of the company to Paul and the operating spine of boxing to Bidarian.
PFL MMA assets move in
The new company will bring together boxing, MMA, live events, athlete development, and worldwide content distribution. Its foundation in MMA comes from PFL's roster, operations, infrastructure, media assets, and event production capabilities, giving MVP a ready-made league apparatus rather than a start-from-scratch expansion.
PFL's elite fighter roster and world-class MMA event production capabilities now sit inside a wider platform where MVP becomes the master brand for all combat sports properties. MVP and MVPW remain the cornerstones of BLE and boxing inside the new entity, so the merger reads less like two equals joining and more like PFL being absorbed into a new operating structure.
Coming months for MVP MMA
The migration to MVP MMA will be fully completed in the coming months, which gives fighters, staff, and business partners a short transition window before the brand and operating model settle. That timing is the practical takeaway for anyone inside the system: the deal is done at the top, but the day-to-day conversion still has to be finished.
Backed by 885 Capital and Knighthead Capital Management, the combined company is being positioned as a fighter-first platform built around visibility and compensation. MVP's earlier success with MVP MMA 1 helped open the door to this move, but the real test now is whether one banner can hold both boxing and MMA without blurring what made each side work in the first place.
