UFC Hall of Fame to Induct Co-Founder Bob Meyrowitz on July 10

Ultimate Fighting Championship co-founder Bob Meyrowitz will be inducted into the Contributors Wing of the UFC Hall of Fame this summer, the promotion announced Wednesday.

Meyrowitz started Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), a company that developed content for pay-per-view, in the late 1980s. He later joined forces with Campbell McClaren, Art Davie and Rorion Grace to stage UFC 1 in Denver on Nov. 12, 1993.

The inaugural event, which saw Royce Gracie win an eight-man, one night tournament, was more of a draw on pay-per-view than originally anticipated. Overall, however, the UFC was not financially successful, and Meyrowitz sold the company to Zuffa in 2001.

“Do I regret selling it?” Meyrowitz told UFC.com. “No, I don’t. The Fertittas were willing to invest 40 million dollars into this. I don’t know if I had that money that I would have. And the Fertittas had an incredible passion for the sport. It is quite astounding what a brilliant job the Fertittas and Dana White have done. But we didn’t even know what we were creating, and it slowly kept taking form as you were watching it.”

Meyrowitz will join Charles “Mask” Lewis and Jeff Blatnick in the Hall of Fame Contributors Wing in an induction ceremony on July 10 in Las Vegas. It was previously announced that UFC and Pride Fighting Championships star Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will also be enshrined that day.