According to his best friend, Scott Coker is a lifelong martial artist, a bad golfer and a promoter forever critical to the MMA landscape.And as of Thursday morning, he’s back in the sport. With the launch of a yet-to-be-named fight promotion, Coker — the man who built Strikeforce and Bellator, two of the UFC’s biggest challengers to date — is starting a new tournament-styled league with $60 million in initial funding that he says will be additive to the ever-expanding fight industry.The promotion, which does not yet have any media distribution deals or fighters signed, has ambitions for a debut in the first quarter of 2027. It will be led by Coker and co-founder Peter Levin, the aforementioned best friend who is the managing director of the venture capital firm Griffin Gaming Partners. Levin previously worked with Coker as an early investor in Strikeforce.While Levin’s involvement in the fight game dates back to his days representing fighters such as Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and Mark Coleman in the early 2000s, his expertise with this new promotion will be most valuable in licensing, merchandising and global distribution deals. He has also played a significant role in its raising of $60 million in capital.And he thinks Coker is a fitting steward of the fights themselves.“I dare you to find someone who’s going to say something negative about Scott,” Levin said, later adding, “I think the sport (and) the community writ large is going to be really, really happy that he’s getting back after it. It’s just a huge net positive for the sport.”Scott Coker standing behind Ronda Rousey after her win at a Strikeforce event in 2012. (Esther Lin / Forza LLC / Forza LLC via Getty Images)MMA and combat sports at large have seen their share of failed startups. Coker and Levin understand why fans may be skeptical about yet another new promotion. Skeptics will draw comparisons to the hyped announcements of challengers like Affliction, EliteXC and the Global Fight League.The more successful Bellator was sold to the Professional Fighters League, and the UFC bought Strikeforce. Coker, 63, said his previous stints as an MMA executive will make a big difference in this new venture.“You don’t learn (fight promoting) from a business school at a very big university with a nice diploma on the wall. This is a school of hard knocks,” he said.Coker’s reentry into the sport comes five days after the Jake Paul-led Most Valuable Promotions held its first MMA event in partnership with the streaming giant Netflix, which was the network’s first set of live MMA fights.By quantifiable metrics, MVP’s event was a success. Netflix said more than 12.4 million viewers tuned in live, peaking at 17 million during the main event, a Ronda Rousey romp past Gina Carano in 17 seconds. On YouTube, the livestreamed prelims totaled 2.2 million viewers.That success shines against the backdrop of what many have considered a stale stretch for the UFC. The promotion remains the sport’s undeniable leader, but has struggled to find a new generation of mainstream stars since Rousey and Conor McGregor in the 2010s. Rousey and McGregor in 2026 have become renewed symbols of that challenge, with Rousey able to draw millions of fans after 10 years away from competition and McGregor already expected to deliver big audiences with a July UFC comeback against Max Holloway.But even with the UFC’s challenges, no rival promotion has come close to usurping the sport’s power dynamic. The UFC earned a new media agreement with Paramount+ worth $7.7 billion over seven years, and the promotion is also staging an event at the White House next month, which UFC CEO Dana White has described as the most important event in the company’s history.Strikeforce, founded by Coker in 1985 as a kickboxing organization, has been the closest challenger to the UFC.Strikeforce held its first MMA event in 2006, a night that was echoed in the formula used by MVP this month, leaning on former UFC legends and trailblazers Ken Shamrock and Cesar Gracie. It was the first regulated MMA event held in California and set a record for the largest audience at an MMA event. (Nate Diaz, who had a bloody, wincing loss to Mike Perry on Netflix this month, had a win on that 2006 Strikeforce card.)Scott Coker standing between Nate (left) and Nick (right) Diaz after a Strikeforce fight in 2011. (Esther Lin / Zuffa LLC / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)In 2009, Coker landed an enormous star: Fedor Emelianenko, who has a case among some fans as one of the greatest fighters, and certainly among the greatest heavyweights, of all time. Emelianenko had turned down offers from the UFC, but joined Coker’s promotion on a three-fight deal. His debut was Strikeforce’s first nationally televised event on CBS and drew 5.46 million viewers.By the time UFC’s parent company, Zuffa, LLC, purchased Strikeforce in 2011, the promotion had reshaped the sport by uncovering new stars and by pushing women’s MMA into the top competitions, a move UFC had hesitated to make back then until it eventually landed Rousey in the Strikeforce acquisition.“When I had Strikeforce, and we were building Bellator, it was never about, ‘We’re going to go and take anybody down.’ It really was additive,” Coker said. “We’re going to be additive to what the UFC is doing. In a way, it was disruptive, sure. But to me, this is something I spent almost four decades doing.”Unlike many promoters, Coker’s four-decade journey didn’t begin in front of a camera or with a microphone in hand. It began on a mat at a gym.“Before I even got into promoting, this has been a martial arts journey for me,” he said, adding: “That’s why I’m able to connect with all these athletes, because I grew up in a school like them. I wore the gi just like them. I got my black belt just like them.”That common language is why Coker has been able to build relationships with fighters beyond the words on their contracts. Randy Couture spoke at his MMA Hall of Fame induction. His list of testimonials runs from Emelianenko to Khabib Nurmagomedov.And it’s also what has made him one of the sport’s most gifted talent evaluators.Strikeforce alums include future UFC champs such as Daniel Cormier, Luke Rockhold, Robbie Lawler, Tyron Woodley, Miesha Tate and Rousey. His key in finding the next star was to consider not just fight results, Coker said, but to also consider an intrinsic X-factor: Their fighting spirit.It was a style of scouting Coker learned in Japan from his days with the kickboxing promotion K-1.“We’ve all seen fights where the guys go down to the ground, and they’re just kind of lying on each other, not really fighting. And you know what? Japan would probably cut those guys,” Coker said.Cormier was a collegiate wrestling star with no fighting experience when he sat down at a restaurant with Coker. He didn’t have the physical build of a fighter, Coker said, but he had an aura about him that was undeniable, a warm glow and positive energy that sold Coker on the future UFC Hall of Famer.Carano didn’t have any fighting experience either when Coker walked into renowned Muay Thai Grand Master Toddy’s gym in Las Vegas. Coker was there to sign another fighter, but was drawn to Carano instead.“She was kicking on the wall and I said, ‘Well, what do you do?’ I thought she was there for cardio kickboxing class or something, and she goes, ‘Oh no, I want to be a fighter,’” Coker said. “So I went to talk to the teacher, Master Toddy, and I said, ‘Well, who’s that girl out there?’ … He goes, ‘Scott, she’s very good. She has the heart of a lion.’”Ask Coker and Levin what will define success for this promotion, and they’ll give you the standard answers: media deals, sold-out arenas, global distribution. All of which matters but none of which work without a more critical goal.The heart of this new promotion is about Coker walking into gyms again, finding the fighter nobody else sees yet, and being right about them just as he was with Carano, Cormier and Rousey. “We will build some stars,” he said.“If you’re going to bet on a horse, this is the horse to bet on,” he said about himself, using the same scouting sentiment he has applied to countless others. “I feel really good about this.”