The fingerprints from Joe Silva’s work with the UFC are long lasting. Hired back when it was an SEG property, Silva was the first – and for many years, only – matchmaker of the promotion’s modern, Zuffa era. He’s credited, along with John McCarthy and Jeff Blatnick, for helping modernize the organization in ways that would appeal to regulators who had driven MMA out of the major venues of North America—and into rural backwaters like Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The institution of gloves, stricter adherence to when fighters can strike where, and how, and, of course, the introduction of weight classes were instrumental improvements.