Cage Kings

April 24, 2023
This strong debut by journalist Thomsen charts the tumultuous rise of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the professional mixed martial arts league. Drawing on interviews with fighters, trainers, promoters, and media executives, Thomsen chronicles how the UFC started as an inauspicious moonshot, overcame bans in 36 states, and became “one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world.” The Championship, Thomsen writes, was the brainchild of ad executive Art Davie, who in the early 1990s developed a pitch for a TV series featuring combat between fighters of different disciplines (“Could an American kickboxer fend off a sumo wrestler?”), and with support from Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion Rorion Gracie, the UFC debuted on pay-per-view television in 1993. Thomsen breaks down the business deals, controversies, and fights that took the UFC from niche sport to corporate behemoth, including John McCain’s 1996 crusade to ban the league from television and blow-by-blow accounts of key matches. Deep dives into the lives of Davie, fighter Conor McGregor, and UFC president Dana White give the narrative a novelistic quality, and Thomsen thoughtfully probes the ethical questions raised by the sport, criticizing it for permitting submission holds that “tear ligaments and muscle from the bone.” This is the definitive account of the UFC’s fight to the top.