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Art Davie
ART DAVIE
Davie comes to the entertainment business from the advertising agency world. He was an account executive and copywriter in California ad agencies for many years, specializing in package ...view moreART DAVIE
Davie comes to the entertainment business from the advertising agency world. He was an account executive and copywriter in California ad agencies for many years, specializing in package goods and politics. Spectacle and creativity was always a theme in Davie’s work. For example: a campaign for the Honda Dealer Associations featured a giant zucchini, lemon, and tomato on wheels, and was featured in the May 3-9, 1980 issue of TV Guide (“Nice - But do you have something in a ’77 Eggplant?”).
Davie even performed stunts in TV commercials (for his own San Diego car dealership –Toyack Motors) where he jumped from a 10-story building onto an airbag, was set on fire, shot with a .357 magnum, catapulted over a car and suspended from a helicopter.
But that was before he had an epiphany in 1993 and created the television tournament that pitted boxers, wrestlers, and martial artists against each other. This became The Ultimate Fighting Championship®, the franchise that exploded on Pay-Per-View TV and became a multi-billion dollar business. In addition to being the UFC’s creator, Davie produced, wrote rule the initial books, booked and matched fighters as well as serving as the UFC Commissioner.
In 1998, Art brought K-1: The New Fighting Sport from Fuji TV in Japan to American television with a show at the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Creating new TV shows brought him to Mandalay Sports Entertainment in 2003 where he developed pilots, including King of the Streets, a drag-racing reality show; Fight Quest, a mixed-martial arts reality show; and MAGIC (Making a Great Inner City), with Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
In 2008 Art developed a new combat sports, XARM®, a combination of arm wrestling, kick boxing and martial arts with Seattle based Piranha Productions; and formed XARM Inc. He secured a partnership with Endemol USA for an XARM iPhone/Android game; and 495 Productions for an XARM based reality show.
In 2014, with co-author Sean Wheelock, Davie wrote Is This Legal? The inside story of the First UFC from the man who created it. This was published as a print book by Ascend Books in 2014 9thru March 2018).
Davie attended New York Military Academy (where Donald Trump was his roommate), St. John’s University, and Pace College in New York City. As a Marine Corp Sergeant, Art had a Top Secret clearance and served as a computer operator at the Communications Center for the Commandant of the Marine Corps Center in the Pentagon. Davie was later awarded the Navy Achievement Medal with combat “V” for his service in the Republic of Vietnam in 1969/1970. After military service, Art worked with youth gangs in New York City as a member of the Youth Services Agency - Crisis Task Force. In 2018, Davie was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.view less