Mike Tyson, Ariel Helwani, and Jake Paul speak onstage at the press conference in promotion for the upcoming Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match at The Apollo Theater on May 13, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images for Netflix)
Ariel Helwani spent all his life looking up to his broadcasting heroes, including Howard Stern, Dan Patrick, and Bill Simmons.
In less than a week, the prominent MMA journalist will join the ranks of his icons with the official launch of his own namesake program, the Ariel Helwani Show.
For the 42-year-old, it’s been a long time coming. He’s been interviewing the best fighters in the world for two decades. Helwani has had his name tacked on to his flagship show before, most recently during his stint at ESPN, where he hosted the wildly popular Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show from 2018 until his departure in 2021.
This time, though, Helwani thinks he deserves it.
“I always felt like I didn’t earn that right yet, and now I feel like I’ve earned the right,” Helwani told RG.
Helwani announced the next step of his storied MMA journalism career over the summer, when he revealed that he was leaving his post at MMAFighting.com to partner with Yahoo! Sports. Alongside his new namesake show, which will air on his YouTube channel starting Oct. 14, Helwani is launching a new combat sports website called Uncrowned.
“We’ve amassed an amazing team of writers and are going to do some great journalism,” Helwani said. “It’s kind of like my Grantland, if you will.”
It was the best-case scenario for Helwani. When he announced his free agency, he said he received five good offers — from Yahoo!, MMAFighting, Spotify, and two other companies he declined to name. Ultimately, Helwani said he found Yahoo!’s offer to be a no-brainer. They were “aggressive,” he said, and seemed to fully buy into his vision right from the jump.
Helwani hopes that Uncrowned will be a welcomed and much-needed addition to today’s MMA media landscape, which — due to a combination of the ever-changing media industry and the UFC’s own hostility towards legacy journalists — has turned towards clicky social-friendly content over longform storytelling.
“There was a time, like 2016, 2017, 2015, where I thought MMA media was thriving in a very big way,” Helwani recalled. “In particular, the stuff that we were doing on MMAFighting.com with the features, the longforms, the great storytelling. Obviously, there’s a place for the fight announcements, the he-said-she-saids. But I feel like a lot of that storytelling has gone away.”
Looking to fill that gap, Uncrowned has already signed some of the sport’s best writers and reporters to its editorial team.
“I hope that it will be a breath of fresh air and a lot different than what you’re getting on all the other sites, because I do agree that a lot of it is similar and nothing really sticks out,” Helwani added.
Unlike other websites, Helwani’s won’t be beholden to access to fighters or live events. His reputation speaks for itself; he’s already survived a bizarre UFC blackball in 2016, in which he was banned from covering the organization's events after breaking news about the return of Brock Lesnar at UFC 200.
The ban was rescinded later that year, but the incident damaged Helwani’s relationship with UFC President Dana White to this day. Perhaps adding fuel to the fire to their yearslong beef, Helwani’s face was plastered on billboards around The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas in September to promote Uncrowned — on the same weekend that White was promoting UFC 306 at The Sphere down the street.
Like his relationship with White, MMA as a whole has changed dramatically since Helwani first started covering the sport more than 20 years ago. Required uniforms, near-weekly fight cards and widespread ESPN coverage were not features boasted by the early UFC.
Some longtime fans bemoan their favorite sport becoming mainstream and the conformity that entails. Helwani misses aspects of the old-school game, too. But he says he’s still as intrigued by fighting as he was 20 years ago, when he was an eager Syracuse student covering the UFC for his university’s radio station.
“I mean, I devote my life to this, and I wouldn’t if I wasn’t into it,” Helwani said. “There’s nothing better than mano a mano, may the best man win. There are obviously times where you’re watching these Apex fights and you’re like, ‘Well, this isn’t very fun.’ And the good news is I don’t have to watch every single thing that I don’t find fun. But the vast majority, I find very fun and interesting.”
That’s not to say Helwani doesn’t skip a card every once in a while.
“I was in Europe post-Olympics,” Helwani said, recalling the last fight he missed live. “It was the [Marcin] Tybura v. [Sergey] Spivak card, which wasn’t a great card. I don’t know how these European fans do it, but I’m not going to stay up on vacation until 5 a.m. to watch an Apex card.”
These days, Helwani has more to worry about than middling fight nights. He’s already dipped his toes in covering other sports like the NBA, the Olympic Games, professional darts, even birding. Despite his reputation, he said he’s far from feeling like he’s “made it.” In fact, he said he still feels like a rookie.
As he looks to the future, Helwani is building a brand that he hopes will see him remembered as not just a great MMA journalist, but a great storyteller beyond the cage.
“I don’t just want to be viewed as an MMA journalist,” Helwani said. “That would be a real shame.”
Erik Uebelacker
