Art Davie (born April 5, 1947) is a business executive and entrepreneur formerly active in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...
advertising circles. In 1993, he created and co-produced the tournament which became the televised
Ultimate Fighting Championship
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...
.
In 1998, Davie, as vice-president of K-1 USA, brought the successful
K-1
K-1 is a professional kickboxing promotion established in 1993, well known worldwide mainly for its heavyweight division fights and Grand Prix tournaments. In January 2012, K-1 Global Holdings Limited, a company registered in Hong Kong, acquired ...
kickboxing
Kickboxing is a combat sport focused on kicking and punching. The combat takes place in a boxing ring, normally with boxing gloves, mouthguards, shorts, and bare feet to favour the use of kicks. Kickboxing is practiced for self-defense, general ...
franchise from Japan to Las Vegas and North American
pay-per-view
Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast.
Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program g ...
television. In 2003, Davie was an executive producer with
Mandalay Sports Entertainment Mandalay Baseball LLC is a subsidiary of Mandalay Entertainment Group. MSE previously owned a number of minor-league baseball teams, via its former Mandalay Baseball subsidiary, and was responsible for managing others.
Teams previously owned
* Lak ...
. In 2006, he became vice-president of television at Paradigm Entertainment Group. In 2014, Ascend Books published Davie's book, ''
Is This Legal?: The Inside Story of the First UFC from the Man Who Created It''.
Sean Wheelock
Sean Wheelock (born 1974) is a mixed martial arts and soccer commentator based in Shawnee, Kansas. He served as the commentator for the M-1 Challenge and served as the play-by-play television commentator for Bellator Fighting Championships fr ...
assisted in the book's research and writing.
In November 2014, Davie was inducted into the Legends of MMA Hall of Fame, alongside
Big John McCarthy,
Pat Miletich
Patrick Jay Miletich (; born March 9, 1966) is a retired American mixed martial artist and former sports commentator. He is known for his fights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where he became the first UFC Welterweight Champion and UFC ...
,
Fedor Emelianenko
Fedor Vladimirovich Emelianenko ( rus, Фёдор Влади́мирович Емелья́ненко, r=Fyodor Vladimirovich Yemelyanenko, p=ˈfʲɵdər vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ jɪmʲɪˈlʲjænʲɪnkə, IPA; born ...
, and
Rickson Gracie
Rickson Gracie (; born November 21, 1958) is a Brazilian 9th-degree red belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and a retired mixed martial artist. He is a member of the Gracie family: the third oldest son of Hélio Gracie, brother to Rorion and Relson Grac ...
. On 5 July 2018 he was inducted into the
UFC Hall of Fame
The UFC Hall of Fame is a hall of fame which honors mixed martial artists and MMA personalities, established and maintained by the U.S.-based mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In addition to the Ultimate Fighting ...
in the
Contributors wing.
XARM
Davie's new venture, XARM,
is a hybrid sport that combines
kickboxing
Kickboxing is a combat sport focused on kicking and punching. The combat takes place in a boxing ring, normally with boxing gloves, mouthguards, shorts, and bare feet to favour the use of kicks. Kickboxing is practiced for self-defense, general ...
and
arm wrestling
Arm wrestling (also spelled armwrestling) is a sport with two opponents who face each other with their bent elbows placed on a table and hands firmly gripped, who then attempt to force the opponent's hand down to the table top ("pin" them). The s ...
. While at a meeting in 2008 with executives from Piranha entertainment in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
, Davie announced he wanted back into the MMA industry, but estimated it would take millions of dollars to create a new brand that could compete with the
UFC. Rather than do that he decided to brand a whole new sport all together, and XARM was created. Contested across a table, adjustable for height from , bouts consist of three one-minute rounds, with a one-minute rest period between rounds. Athletes are allowed one assistant (
second
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ea ...
) at table-side. To prevent the fighters from separating, their arms used for the arm wrestling portion are bound together with a strap, leaving the other arm free to punch and submit the other fighter. In June 2008, Davie teamed up with fight promoter Ted Williams to film the first pilot. Williams provided Davie with his main card fighters from Gladiator Challenge.
[ XARM was originally scheduled to have its first TV air date in 2012,][ but was put on hold. Davie, in 2011, announced a partnership with Sallyann Salsano, the show runner for Jersey Shore. The Show was hosted and coached by professional movie actor and Arm Wrestling legend, Andrew “Cobra” Rhodes, with longtime MMA Fighter Cal Worsham as the referee. In 2012, XARM announced a partnership with Machinima to produce online reality show episodes.
]
Book
Davie wrote, with Sean Wheelock
Sean Wheelock (born 1974) is a mixed martial arts and soccer commentator based in Shawnee, Kansas. He served as the commentator for the M-1 Challenge and served as the play-by-play television commentator for Bellator Fighting Championships fr ...
, '' Is This Legal?: The Inside Story of The First UFC From the Man Who Created It''. It was published by Ascend Books on July 4, 2014. It chronicles the period October 1989 through November 13, 1993, when Davie worked on the first UFC event. The book also recounts Davie's military service after attending New York Military Academy
New York Military Academy (NYMA) is a college preparatory, co-ed boarding school in the rural town of Cornwall, north of New York City, and one of the oldest military schools in the United States. Originally a boys' school, it started admitting ...
, where he roomed with classmate Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
for a semester.[
In 2015, the book was optioned by Legacy Entertainment Partners to make into a feature movie. In 2017, the book was optioned by Nimitt Mankad of Inimitable Pictures.
]
References
External links
UFC Creator and RipeTV Launch XARM, First Combat Sport for the Digital Age
NEXT Sport: XARM. Arm wrestling + MMA = the future of combat sports? ESPN the Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davie, Art
Living people
Mixed martial arts executives
New York Military Academy alumni
People from Hesperia, California
People from Pahrump, Nevada
1947 births