Conspiracy Theory:
Donn Davis works for the UFC to act as controlled opposition, absorbing and undermining any other competitors and making the UFC look good in comparison.
Three key common players between both that make this a compelling thought, Ali, ESPN, and Saudi Arabia. What you suggest may not be the case, but, something else that is compelling is that MMAX, the company that owns PFL, is an investment company founded by a group of DC area investors, and, once founded, almost immediately purchased WSOF. I presume a bunch of money men in DC have strong bonds and ties to politicians on DC, one of them being a man who aspires to be the governor of Virginia, and ties to politicians in DC is something Dana himself also enjoys. This was all happening right in the middle of the UFC's major antitrust lawsuit. Also ran org WSOF, which almost no one cared about, was rebranded and very shortly went from NBC Sports to ESPN, and to signing fighters like Ngannou, and hosting cards in SA. Kind of convenient for such a competitor to the UFC to have that kind of success (on paper, we know in reality that PFL still sucks balls) in such a relatively short amount of time. Now we see that, even after the judge in the antitrust case denied the resolution and kept the lawsuit alive, the UFC ultimately still came away in very good shape, that lawsuit is over with, and the UFC have a "legitimate" competitor that is poaching some it's best fighters. Stranger still is PFL signing Ngannou for way more than what they should be able to pay him, and having not folded.
I'm not really suggesting any of this is legitimately tied together, but after reading your post, it all became kinda compelling. Perhaps the UFC has no tangible ties to any of the MMAX bigwigs, but perhaps Endeavor does. Money tends to tie a ton of unrelated entities together. I don't really have the nerve to dig into that. But nothing surprises me in the world of business, everything is a smoke and mirrors game.
