It’s a chance for the UFC to go from strength to strength in a market where they have played a smart game over the last decade.

“There has never been more talent, more fans, and more energy and momentum for UFC in China than right now,” UFC president Dana White said in a press release.

That talent is up to 12 fighters in the promotion, led by women’s strawweight champion Zhang Weili, while the organisation claims to have 173.8 million fans in China according to a recent study by YouGov, GWI and Simmons.

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Add on the 10s of millions of followers across Chinese social media platforms such as Douyin, Weibo, WeChat and Bilibili and you can see why White is excited by the possibilities.

“This partnership with Migu is going to take UFC to the next level,” he said.

It is good news for fighters and fight fans and fitting that it comes almost 10 years to the day since the debut of China’s first fighter in the UFC, Zhang Tiequan.

If the timing is fitting historically, it is also apt for the immediate future.

The new deal will begin with UFC 259 from Las Vegas this weekend and surely it is no coincidence that “The Kung Fu Monkey” Song Yadong is on the card.

Interest in the UFC is sure to build up by the time of another title fight, reported to happen next month: Zhang Weili’s second defence against former champ Rose Namajunas at UFC 261 in Las Vegas on April 24.

The UFC has staged more than 40 events since May 2020, after being one of the first sports organisations to emerge from the Covid-19 pause. China will soon return to hosting sport and the UFC will be there to help them meet demand with an increase in events in the country.

In the meantime, fight fans will be able to watch 12 pay-per-views and 30 Fight Nights through the UFC Fan Club annual subscription on Migu, and casual followers can buy individual pay-per-views.

Going direct to mobile to do that is a smart move, and China Mobile are one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the business.

Pay-per-view has long been a struggle in China – well, subscription has in the decade-plus since broadcasters tried it with the English Premier League and other European football leagues. It is still proving problematic as PPTV’s struggles show.

Broadcasters have come and gone, but the likes of China Mobile have not and there is little reason to doubt that they will.

To give you a clue of where Migu stands in the market, they have sub-licensed the rights for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the next Fifa World Cup.

In fact, they have the rights to show Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022, Qatar 2022 and Euro 2020 on their streaming platform, all sublicensed from state broadcaster CCTV, and it plans to show them like it did the last Fifa World Cup in Russia in 2018.

“We are proud to call Migu the new home of UFC in China,” said Kevin Chang, senior vice-president of UFC Asia-Pacific. “Migu is the clear industry leader, and UFC will be among other top echelon sports properties on the platform.

“This ‘first of its kind’ partnership will be transformative for our growth and development, and will firmly entrench UFC as an iconic global sports brand.”

What might be smartest of all, though, is the potential to cosy up further to the powers that be.

The UFC can make content to chime with the Chinese government’s 2014 policy drive to make the nation’s 1.4 billion population fitter and healthier and deliver it direct to consumers.

The UFC has already allowed its US$13 million Shanghai Performance Centre to be used by the Beijing 2022 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic teams as part of their role as Official High-Performance Adviser to the Chinese Olympic Committee.

This deal has further strengthened the UFC’s grip on Chinese mixed martial arts – and it is hard to see room for any other promoters to manoeuvre.