The partnership between Rede Globo and the Ultimate Fighting Championship that started in 2011 is arguably the biggest turning point in the sport's history in Brazil. From the moment that Brazil’s largest television network started broadcasting numbered UFC events, taking a sport that had been exclusively on cable channels Sportv and Combate, and starting to show MMA in its journalism and entertainment programming, the sport was cemented as the second most popular in the country, but Globo was not the first TV station in Brazil to make a live broadcast of the UFC. Almost 20 years ago SBT, the second-biggest network channel in Brazil, owned by the most popular TV presenter in the country, Silvio Santos, was the first to broadcast the UFC live, showing the fight between Chuck Liddell and Vitor Belfort at UFC 37.
UFC 37.5: Belfort vs. Liddell, the First UFC on Brazilian Network TV
