MMA legend Scott Coker shares details on his new World MMA Championship

Why is Scott Coker returning to MMA?

I asked Coker what made him come back after stepping away from Bellator. He said the decision began with serious reflection on his legacy.

“When I ended my relationship with Bellator, I took about six months off and really thought about what it is that I want to do,” Coker told me. “Is it nothing? Maybe I’ll just do nothing and just go to the golf course every day and hit a few balls and retire. But I just felt like I had so much energy left.”

The pull came from the co-founder of his new league, Peter Levin of Griffin Gaming Partners, who, Coker explained, kept pushing him to draw a plan and execute it again.

Once committed, the pieces came together quickly

“We took it to market and surprisingly, it was 90 days later, 100 days later, we were fully ready to go,” he said. His stated motivation is a feeling that the sport has cooled and healing is what he believes he does best. “MMA is in a bit of a slump,” Coker said. “We’ve got to go make some new stars and that’s really what it’s all about.”

This is the area where he believes his history in Strikeforce and Bellator speaks the loudest.

What will Scott Coker’s new MMA League look like?

When I asked about the structure – seasons, groups, promotion and relegation – Coker first wanted to clarify his terminology.

“When I say championship, I just want to clarify that what I mean by that is, I look at the UFC, I look at all these other companies, in my mind I call them a championship,” he explained. “Well, it’s really a promotion. This is going to be a super fight division and there’s going to be a tournament element to it.”

I asked Coker about the structure. Is this a league in the same sense as a traditional team sports league or something else? Coker was careful to clarify his use of the word “championship.”

This hearkens back to the tournament and champion model that defined his Bellator years. Coker said the details were still being worked out, adding, “give us a few more weeks and we’ll have something else to tell you.” He was more animated about the investor group’s reach into collectibles and toys.

“I’m a collector myself. I love the sports card industry and I love all collectibles,” he said of the planned Upper Deck partnership. He also pointed to video games and gaming as future industries: “There’s going to be a licensing opportunity for the video game, there’s going to be a licensing opportunity for games, and there’s going to be the trading card piece.”

The investor mix spans traditional sports, gaming, betting and collectibles, and Coker is openly excited about a creative partnership with trading card company Upper Deck.

Trading cards and collectibles are seeing a surge in popularity, but stars are an important piece of that puzzle. The league will need fighters that the public cares about to fuel interest in collectibles.

He also pointed to video game licensing and gaming as industries the company plans to explore, given Levin’s background in gaming. The video game avenue is interesting because it creates an opportunity for Coker’s League to make a splash next to the direct product.

If Coker and his team can work with a development team capable of producing a stellar MMA game that does everything EA UFC does and things it can’t because of the TKO team license, there’s something really worth exploring.

The game’s popularity could help build stars while also generating revenue tied to the promotion’s brand.

How will Fighter Pay and Freedom be different?

This is big for the fighters and therefore the fans.

Since fighters across the sport—particularly in the UFC—often say they feel underpaid, I asked Coker how his pay structure would win over the market. He showed the standard of Strikeforce.

“The one thing we did in Strikeforce that we’re talking about is we paid 58% of the revenue to fighter purses,” Coker said. He framed the new venture as a test of the strength of any single promotion. “If you’re the only player left in town, you can dictate the pay scale. Now we’re going to add more money to the pool, so the fighters will have some options on where they want to go.”

On whether the fighters would have the freedom to box or co-promote — the kind of freedom Francis Ngannou once sought — Coker positioned himself as one of the partnership’s early adopters.

“If you look at my history, I’m probably one of the first adapters that co-promoted and shared fighters with Pride way back when,” he said. “Working with other leagues will definitely happen. Fighters first — that’s what we’re going to do.”

This opening is in line with where the broader market is headed. MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian recently told me he’s open to co-promotion with PFL and others after the promotion’s record-setting Netflix debut, and Ngannou’s own knockout under the MVP banner showed how crossover stars thrive with leeway.

How will Coker build MMA’s next stars?

Star recognition is the part of the business Coker believes he does better than anyone else, and I asked what a 22-year-old prospect’s path to his promotion would be like. He responded with a roster of names he made up from scratch.

“Daniel Cormier, no fights. Tyron Woodley, no fights. Luke Rockhold, no fights,” Coker said. “I’ve taken these guys from no struggles and eventually built them up to where they are some of the biggest stars in the sport.”

He was also the first person to give Ronda Rousey a shot on the big stage when he signed her in 2011 after just two professional MMA fights.

For Coker, the formula goes beyond fighting ability — it’s charisma and the intangibles he learned to appreciate in Japan.

“It’s more than fighting me. Can they speak well? Do they have that certain charisma, that X-factor?” he said. He compared it to what made him sign Cormier after one conversation: “He started talking and I said, you should be a commentator. There was something about him that I could feel.”

A group of scouts is now being formed to, as Coker put it, “scroll the planet” for the next star — and the name of the bid, he said, will be revealed soon.

Cocker shared the origin story of meeting Cormier at a restaurant with no fights to his name, telling him he should be a commentator before seeing him compete. Coker says he knew Cormier would be a star early on.

The company is assembling a global team of scouts now, with Coker describing the process as “mining” the planet for the next star. The name of the deal hasn’t been revealed yet, but Coker said an announcement is coming soon.

It intrigues me as there can never be too many viable MMA promotions for fans to cover and watch.