Cusson remained the development Designer

Davie met Rorion Gracie in 1991 while copa mundial researching martial arts for any marketing client. Gracie operated a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school in Torrance, California and the Gracie family had a long good reputation for vale tudo matches?a precursor of mixed martial arts in Brazil. Davie became Gracie's student.

In 1992, inspired by the Gracies in Action video-series produced by the Gracies and featuring Gracie jiu-jitsu defeating various martial-arts masters, Davie proposed to Rorion Gracie and John Milius an eight-man, single-elimination tournament with a title of War from the Worlds. The tournament would feature martial artists from different disciplines facing one another in no-holds-barred combat to determine what martial art was truly 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, agreed to function as the event's creative director. Davie drafted the company plan and twenty-eight investors contributed the first capital to begin WOW Promotions with the intent to develop the tournament right 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 SET declined, but SEG ? an innovator in pay-per-view television which had produced such off-beat events as a mixed-gender tennis match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova chaussures de foot pas cher 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 development Designer through UFC 27. SEG devised the name for the show as 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 different proficiencies?including boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling and Muay Thai, amongst others?the UFC sought to recognize the very best martial-art inside a real fight. Over time 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 untouched markets within the United States, the UFC as of 2010 has gained in popularity, together with greater mainstream-media coverage. By 2010 viewers can access UFC programming on pay-per-view television, Spike in the United States and Canada, on ESPN mercurial superfly pas cher in the United Kingdom plus 33 other countries worldwide.