During the UFC’s first major boom in popularity in the late 2000s, veteran boxing promoter Bob Arum made made it clear that he had nothing kind to say about the combat sport that was looking to rival his own on the American PPV market. At the time, he thought very little of mixed martial arts fighters and the fans who avidly showed their support.
“UFC (fans) are a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys,” Arum told Ariel Helwani in a 2009 interview. “For me and people like me, it is not something that they ever care to see.