Ex-UFC executive Michael Mersch named World Series of Fighting's COO

Michael Mersch spent Monday in New York, like he'd done many times during his eight-year tenure with Zuffa, the UFC's parent company. The New York State Assembly plans to vote on Tuesday on a proposal that would make mixed martial arts legal in the state.

Mersch worked tirelessly on the issue for the UFC, when he was its senior vice president of business and legal affairas as well as its assistant general counsel from 2007 through 2015. This time, though, he was in New York for a different reason.

He's been appointed chief operating officer of the World Series of Fighting by CEO Carlos Silva, and was in the Empire State not only for today's vote, but to meet with the fight promotion's business partners and to being plotting out a strategy for his new job.

"There's quite a steep learning curve," said Mersch, 45, who for the last year had been general counsel for the Nevada Attorney General.

Mersch was offered a job last year with the World Series, but declined, opting instead to return to work for the state of Nevada, where he'd been the senior deputy attorney general prior to leaving for the UFC. But when another call came last month offering him the post as COO, he said he couldn't say no.

Though he knows the MMA space includes two formidable foes in the UFC and the Viacom-owned Bellator, Mersch said he likes what he sees at the World Series of Fighting. He likes the television deal with NBC, is pleased with the quality of fighters on the roster and believes it has much untapped potential.

"What gets me excited to go to work in the morning is that I love this sport; I love comebat sports and I love being a part of it," he said. "Carlos Silva is a great guy and he has a wealth of experience on the television side and he used to run the Universal Sports Network. But one of the things the World Series of Fighting has never had is someone who has been around and been involved on the MMA side of things from a business standpoint."

Mersch said he wants to grow the business "in an aggressive but intelligent manner," and said he thinks the company will be attractive to free agent fighters.

He said the World Series is going to focus on promoting domestically and shoring up its business in the U.S. before it looks to expand beyond that. He raved about the fighters and said that lightweight champion Justin Gaethje, who has developed into one of the sport's must exciting fighters, is a high priority for the company.

"Part of what I want to do is to help this company grow aggressively, but wisely," he said. "I don't want to overextend and grow it too fast. We have a really good core group of fighters, and we have to keep those fighters within the stable. And also, we have to go out there and find new talent.

"One of the hallmarks of the World Series of Fighting is that we've had some great matchmaking and we've put on some great, exciting fights. Most of the talent we've had has been young, up-and-coming talent and part of my job is to help increase the exposure for those fighters."