Dana White’s UFC crossed a financial line in 2025 that once felt untouchable for the sport of MMA. According to their financial earnings report for 2025, the promotion cleared $1.5 billion in revenue and printed margins most sports leagues would kill for. However, despite this, for the first time since the merger, the UFC walked out of the year playing second fiddle inside its own house.

According to their financial earnings report, Dana White’s promotion hit a milestone, but WWE edged past it in both revenue and raw profit. The numbers don’t mean the UFC is slipping. They mean the gap is closing in ways that change the internal pecking order inside the parent organization, TKO Group Holdings. And when two brands under TKO’s umbrella start trading places at the top, the pressure shifts.

Here’s what the UFC’s 2025 actually looked like in cold numbers, according to TKO’s full year and fourth quarter earnings. Revenue came in at $1.502 billion, up 7% year-over-year. Media rights, production, and content drove $907.7 million of that total, up $28.3 million from the previous year. Partnerships and marketing jumped to $314.3 million, a $62.9 million bump that did the heavy lifting on growth.

Live events and hospitality added $232.9 million, and consumer products plus licensing chipped in $47.3 million. On the profit side, Dana White’s promotion posted $851.0 million in Adjusted EBITDA with a 57% margin. That margin matters. It’s one of the cleanest profit machines in global sports. But WWE’s surge is what appears surprising.

WWE finished 2025 with $1.709 billion in revenue and $896.5 million in Adjusted EBITDA. The driver was the media rights. WWE’s new deals with Netflix and ESPN pushed its media rights, production, and content line to $1 billion, blowing past the UFC’s $907.7 million in the same category. Live events and hospitality were also a different animal: WWE pulled in $412.8 million there, up $74.3 million from 2024 and nearly double the UFC’s $232.9 million. Dana White’s UFC still beats WWE on margins (57% to 52%), but WWE won the raw totals.

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So what’s the takeaway if you’re reading this as a fight fan and not a shareholder? The UFC is still a profit machine. It just isn’t the only star in the building anymore. WWE’s media rights jump shows what happens when a new platform deal hits at the right time. However, despite the landmark achievement, fighters like Sean Strickland and Michael ‘Venom’ Page have now raised questions about how they seem to be on the outside looking in while the promotion soars to new financial heights.

Sean Strickland and Michael Page go off on Dana White and the UFC’s fighter pay issues 

The UFC just posted $1.5B in revenue and a 57% margin. Great for the business, right? But the question fighters keep asking is simpler: where does that leave them? Sean Strickland didn’t sugarcoat it when he spoke to Complex ahead of his fight against Anthony Hernandez. He brushed off the bump in Fight Night bonuses to $100,000 under Dana White and the promotion’s deal with Paramount as window dressing and went straight at the structure.

“As far as the pay scale, when you compare it to any other sporting event, the UFC is the most f— up,” Strickland stated bluntly. “Athlete pay versus what [the UFC] is making, there is no argument there. It’s not fair. It’s predatory. I would just like it to match any other sporting event.”

The UFC doesn’t have a fighters’ union, and past legal filings put the athlete’s share somewhere in the 13–20% range. On its own, that’s a very low number. But when the company’s revenue jumps this fast, that slice of the pie suddenly feels a lot smaller to the people on the roster. In fact, that’s where Michael ‘Venom’ Page came at the same issue.

The Paramount deal bumped Fight Night bonuses. And then, almost in the same breath, Zuffa Boxing reportedly hands Conor Benn a $15 million check for one fight. That contrast is what stuck with MVP.

“That’s not something I’m happy about,” he told Ariel Helwani. “When the announcement of Paramount, big money, partnership came, people were asking me, ‘Are you excited about this?’ My answer was, ‘Well, what does that mean for the fighters? Until we understand how that’s going to translate to the fighters, there’s nothing really to be excited about.’ Then I heard about the increase in bonus structure, and this is why I wasn’t bothered to be excited initially because, for me, that doesn’t do enough comparatively to the amount of money they’ve just brought in for themselves.”

He also raised eyebrows at the optics of pushing into boxing and PowerSlap while UFC fighters still talk about barely getting by. For fans, this part hits closer to home than any earnings call. It’s not about margins. It’s about the people stepping into the cage.