Jake Paul's MVP Dips Its Toes Into Women’s MMA: Ronda Rousey's Return Announced

Picture Jake Paul and business partner Nakisa Bidarian sitting across from Netflix executives last fall, pitching a huge MMA event headlined by two fighters whose combined ring absence stretches back further than most fans' attention spans. One fighter revealed in her own memoir that undisclosed concussions forced her out of the sport. The other got fired from Star Wars and had quite a bit of fallout to handle before anyone asked her to lace up 4oz gloves again. Imagine making that pitch with a straight face. Now imagine it working.  

Jake Paul has become a revolutionary in the world of women's boxing, catapulting stars such as Amanda Serrano to new heights. Now, he's dipping his toes into the women's MMA world, and he has started his crusade at the very summit: snapping up the sport's greatest trailblazer—Ronda Rousey.

Ronda Rousey Returns Under MVP Banner

"Rowdy" became arguably the biggest combat sports star in the world—certainly in the UFC—a decade ago. The former Olympic bronze medalist was sweeping all before her in an epic run as the inaugural UFC bantamweight champion. Fast forward to 2026, and after over ten years out of the cage, Rousey will step back in, facing off against fellow veteran superstar Gina Carano at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on May 16th.  

Online betting sites have already gotten in on the act, pricing up the blockbuster affair three months out from it actually taking place. Websites that allow one to bet on sports with crypto make Rousey a mighty -700 favorite, with Carano way out at +525 to spring the upset.  

Rousey (12-2) hasn't competed since Amanda Nunes turned her lights out 48 seconds into UFC 207 in December 2016. Carano (7-1) hasn't stepped inside a cage since Cris Cyborg punished her over five excruciating rounds in August 2009. Between them, that's 26 years of ring rust and about a hundred reasons this could go sideways.  

And yet. Here we are.

MVP's Tried and Tested Method

Is this a legitimate sporting event or the most expensive nostalgia trip combat sports has ever staged? Considering Netflix paid $20m to a 58-year-old Mike Tyson to get in the ring with Paul, perhaps not. But what makes it impossible to dismiss is that MVP's promotional machine has already proved cynics wrong once, systematically, with receipts. See the mind-boggling amounts of money the Problem Child has been paid to fight washed-up tomato cans. See his willingness to step up to the plate and put on a show against Anthony Joshua, knowing full well he could end up in the ER (spoiler alert: he did, broken jaw and all).  

Rousey called this the "biggest superfight in women's combat sports history," and credited Carano as the pioneer who opened every door she walked through. Whether you buy the sincerity or not, the marketing is immaculate. It marks Netflix's first live MMA event, extending a streaming sports relationship that's already rewritten women's boxing economics. The question isn't whether Paul can hype it. It's whether the fight itself can survive the hype.  

But this isn't Paul's first rodeo, disrupting a combat sports market everyone assumed was already figured out. His blueprint with women's boxing was exactly this: identify massively undervalued talent, attach Netflix's platform, and force the industry to confront its own negligence.

What Jake Paul Did for Women's Boxing

Amanda Serrano earned $1,200 for her boxing debut. Before MVP, she was working full-time as a boxing trainer between fights, a seven-division world champion making $1,000–$2,000 per bout—less than a mid-tier regional kickboxer. She'd considered quitting boxing entirely to try MMA in 2016, frustrated by an industry that couldn't figure out how to monetize arguably its most gifted female fighter.  

Then Jake Paul signed her to a blockbuster deal.  

Let's be clear about what Paul is—he's a businessman who identified extremely undervalued assets and capitalized on them. He's someone who looked at the gap between Serrano's talent and her paycheck and saw arbitrage. Serrano now earns over $1 million per fight, sometimes significantly more. Her purse trajectory—$1,200 to eight figures across multiple fights—is one of the most dramatic compensation corrections in sports history.  

The irony co-hort Bidarian knows well is that there has been a similar issue for Rousey; she has huge mainstream crossover appeal, but hadn’t seen the kind of compensation that she might be capable of earning. Sure, she was still the highest-earning athlete in the company, but she should have been garnering far more, especially when you consider her popularity.  

MVP drew directly from those lessons. Bidarian's challenge was building something sustainable, rather than star-dependent, which explains the 20-plus fighter roster that includes Alycia Baumgardner, Chantelle Cameron, Savannah Marshall, and Dina Thorslund alongside Serrano. 

The honest caveat, though? There is still scope to even things up and improve the situation for many fighters. The model is genuinely better than what existed before, but time is likely to see further shifts in this direction.