Issue 101

May 2013

Renan Barao’s unusual glowing mouth guard, worn during his ring walk to defend his interim UFC bantamweight belt against Michael McDonald at UFC on Fuel 7, was in aid of promoting Oral B toothpaste.

Fans saw Barao trot to the Octagon with light emitting from the mouths of he and his cornermen courtesy of LED-boasting mouthpieces. Soon after, a picture of the walkout was posted on his Twitter featuring Oral-B 3D White branding and the line: “The happy white smile of the champion. #Barão_White_Teeth #OralB3DWhite.”

The publicity stunt was the work of Brazilian marketing agency Africa, the same group responsible for a recent parody-packed Budweiser commercial where Anderson Silva and apparent sensei Steven Seagal both want the last bottle of the brew in a bar.

Reportedly there was a large social media buzz over Barao’s PR move in Brazil, where millions of people are thought to have watched him successfully defend his title against McDonald.

30: UFC star Ronda Rousey is listed amongst Forbes magazine’s exclusive 30 Under 30 ranking for sports, which highlights the best young athletes worldwide.

3: Former kickboxer and MMA figher Ray Sefo's World Series of Fighting promotion has signed a three-year TV deal with the NBC Sports Network. It will mean at least six events broadcast per year.

Report: Viacom's majority stake in Bellator cost $50 million

The majority stake in Bellator MMA owned by media behemoth Viacom cost the company $50 million, according to unnamed sources in a recent New York Times article. 

Previously no one had estimated how much Viacom’s controlling interest had set the business back when it made the move in late 2011. In 2010, UFC president Dana White told Indiana newspaper Indy Star the UFC was worth about $2.5 billion.

Rallying/Crashed: The MMA business can be cruel and kind

Rallying: Ryu

MMA-based sports wear brand RYU (Respect Your Universe) has steamed onto the torsos and waists of MMA’s best fighters in the past year.

Using quality and specialized materials as its selling point, its ergonomic products have been produced with fighter input.

There’s also a dedicated RYU store in Las Vegas.

Crashed: Death Clutch

Created by mega-profile UFC heavyweight Brock Lesnar, after he was a Warrior Wear client in his early UFC career, Death Clutch has ceased to be since Lesnar’s retirement from MMA – as has his fight team of the same name. Brock’s logo in his latest WWE run bears a striking resemblance to that of Death Clutch however.

Industry jobs: Malki Kawa – CEO, First Round Management

What do you do on a daily basis?

“Between 6am and 7am usually I’ll get an hour in at the gym. Depending on whether or not I have my daughter, I’ll take my daughter to school. If I don’t have her then I’ll go straight to the office. Then it’ll be pretty much a day full of meetings, phone conferences and then just a lot of marketing and advertising for the guys, a lot of PR stuff. Also catching up on the events that happened in MMA the day and night before and planning for the future.”

How and when did you get involved in MMA management?

“In 2005 I started off in football. I live in Miami and the University of Miami is a school that’s always produced very good football players. I was doing that at first then in 2007, 2008 I had a lot of personal things that happened: my father passed away, me and my kids’ mom separated, there were a whole load of different personal things that went on. I used MMA as an outlet to escape a lot of those things. In jiu-jitsu training, one of the head coaches that was at a school here in Miami was the coach at the Coconut Creek location of American Top Team. That lead to him leading me to Thiago Alves who became my very first client and obviously opened the door to a lot of other clients.”

What was your best business move?

“Signing Jon Jones, Ben Henderson, Carlos Condit, Thiago Alves. I think the best personal business move I made was the decision to stop representing professional football players and concentrating solely on mixed martial arts. As far as the best deal that I’ve done in MMA, I’d probably have to say the Nike deal with Jon Jones.”