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Hangin' With ... World Series Of Fighting CEO Carlos Silva

CARLOS SILVA is the CEO of World Series of Fighting, the U.S.-based MMA promotion founded in '12. WSOF will on Dec. 31 hold the biggest event in its history, an 11-bout fight card that will take place at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. It will take place from 3pm until 6pm, with live coverage in the U.S. on NBC Sports from 3-4pm, followed by the remaining two hours airing on NBC. The night's main event will be a lightweight title match between JUSTIN GAETHJE and JOAO ZEFERINO. In the co-main event, welterweight world champion JON FITCH will meet JAKE SHIELDS. Silva has been with WSOF since Aug. '15 and his experience prior to joining the organization included a stint as president and COO of Universal Sports Network and seven years as a senior VP at AOL. He spoke to SBD Global about the expectations for the New Year's Eve event, the differences between UFC, Bellator and WSOF and his company's int'l ambitions. 

On the upcoming card in N.Y. ...
Carlos Silva: There's no doubt, the UFC lobbied hard for a long time to get New York state to pass MMA and make it legal. They get a lot of credit for that. We're a beneficiary of that. ... We're super excited. We've actually merged a couple of our shows that we were going to do in Denver and Seattle. We've merged those championship bouts from those shows to bring them to New York City. The fighters were excited about doing that. As a result, we've got just a crazy-big card, four championship bouts. ... The most exciting city in the world, at undoubtedly the most famous venue in the world, you add all that up for World Series of Fighting and it couldn't be a better end of the year, but probably more importantly, a better beginning of the next year for us.

On the event being broadcast by NBC ... 
Silva: We've really shown our partners that we can deliver a top-quality show. As a result, they've put their faith in us to not only have the undercard on NBC Sports Network, but to have the main card on NBC. ... Everyone wants to watch a championship bout. The winner gets to raise the belt at the end of the bout. That's always exciting.

On the differences between UFC, WSOF and Bellator ...
Silva: UFC is the oldest, they've been around the longest. They've got a couple of the biggest names you'll hear that have sort of broken through ... They're the biggest fighting promotion on the planet. I think WSOF has watched how they were trying to turn it more into a sport and less of a promotion. We've always stuck to our guns. Some of that credit goes to [WSOF President] RAY SEFO. Because he's a fighter, he's really tried to make sure that our fighting product is high quality. Our fighters are always prepared, our fighters always make weight. We make sure that they put on a great fight, because if it's a great fight it will also be a great show. That's how we fit into the mix with the UFC. Bellator's a middle promotion, they've been around eight or 10 years. They're now part of Spike and the Viacom network because they were purchased by them. They've put on some great fights too, but they've also brought back a lot of older, classic fights into part of their repertoire, in maybe more of a Viacom entertainment fashion.

On int'l expansion ...
Silva: We've had a pretty good couple of years. We're in partnership with IMG. ... My president, Ray Sefo, who does all of our match-making and really takes care of all fighter relations, is actually over at Sportel as we speak. ... We'll continue to expand. We're in over 50 countries now. I still think there's a lot of potential, a lot of growth in mainland Europe and in Asia that we can still take part in. We also have a licensee, World Series of Fighting Global Championship, that also partners with a number of regional folks in the rest of the world. They continue to put on some good regional shows in each of those countries. I think in 2017 and 2018 we'll continue to grow. 

On attracting fighters from overseas ...
Silva: If you look at our champions, maybe a little bit because Ray also fought internationally -- he was a pro and a world champion, he's from New Zealand and was in Asia a lot -- we're really cultivating a lot of European and Asian fighters and Russian fighters and others that have started to come into World Series of Fighting. That brings a really good international flair with the group of USA folks that we've got on the roster. It continues to grow.

On holding fights internationally ...
Silva: We've done a fight in Canada. And we've been looking at Mexico as another opportunity. I think really what we've done in the last year is said, 'Let's make sure we're great here first, especially with our broadcast partner, NBC Sports.' So that's really what we concentrated on in 2016. I suspect we'll do the same in 2017 before we look to expand. It's important that we're strong here with the live fights. We've got a lot of great broadcast partners that pick up our signal so we can at least beam those fights around the world.

On the opportunity to become a top promotion in markets where MMA is yet to catch on ...
Silva: The rest of the world's a big opportunity for all of us. We're still the youngest of the three big promotions. Probably first for us is finding high-quality international fighters that want to be part of WSOF and make it their home as they grow. Second, how we look at Mexico and Canada first, and then depending on our broadcast partners with our relationship with IMG, where are the next countries that we should go to.

On industry reaction to WME-IMG's recent $4B acquisition of UFC ...
Silva: We had kind of always heard it was going to happen. We had been talking about how MMA as an industry is rivaling the top five in [U.S.] sports. We kind of all know who the top three are with the NFL, baseball and the NBA. But after that, there's always questions, from the PGA Tour to NASCAR, the NHL and a few others. We just felt like now, with the UFC, WSOF and Bellator -- and UFC being bought for such a big number -- it solidified MMA as one of those top five sports. For us, being one of us those top three [promotions within MMA], we thought it was great, we couldn't have been happier.

Hangin' With runs each Friday in SBD Global.

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