The Ariel Helwani Show

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

In 2025, The Ariel Helwani Show solidified its status as the leading combat sports podcast through an unparalleled lineup of guests, innovative storytelling formats, and dynamic on-location production.

Hosted by Ariel Helwani, the show featured interview guests who were a who’s who of MMA, boxing, and professional wrestling, including legends Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Hardy Boyz, and Paul Heyman; UFC champions Ilia Topuria, Israel Adesanya, and Alex Pereira; boxing stars Oscar De La Hoya, Terence Crawford, Devin Haney, and Shakur Stevenson; and entertainment icons like The Rock and Channing Tatum.

The launch of Uncrowned Films expanded the show’s brand into long-form documentary storytelling, with projects that offered deeper explorations of combat sports culture. 

The Ariel Helwani Show also hit the road in 2025, broadcasting from marquee events in Las Vegas and Miami to drive deeper engagement with fans.

How does this represent "Excellence in Engagement"?

Beyond entertaining and informing combat sports fans three days a week, The Ariel Helwani Show successfully brought its production on the road to engage fans in deeper ways in 2025. In June, the show broadcast live from The Venetian Resort Las Vegas for UFC International Fight Week. It featured interviews with top MMA stars such as Tom Aspinall, Israel Adesanya, and Merab Dvalishvili, engaged fans with a UFC 317 watch party, and hosted a show immediately following UFC 317 to break down Ilia Topuria’s knock out of Charles Oliveira. Later, in December, The Ariel Helwani Show brought its production to Miami to preview the Jake Paul-Anthony Joshua fight. In front of a live audience at the Hard Rock Cafe, the show featured interviews with legendary MMA fighter Jorge Masvidal and UFC bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison. Helwani also answered questions from the audience, helping fans feel closer to the show than ever before. Helwani would later appear as the ringside reporter for the Netflix broadcast of the Paul-Joshua bout, reinforcing his position as the leading voice in combat sports media.

Objective

In 2024, Yahoo Sports and Ariel Helwani, the leading voice in combat sports media, partnered to launch Uncrowned, a combat sports media brand. Uncrowned’s flagship podcast is The Ariel Helwani Show, which features commentary and analysis from Helwani and members of the Uncrowned team, as well as interviews with some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment. After a successful launch in 2024, the goal for The Ariel Helwani Show in 2025 was simple: take the program to the next level. It aimed to achieve this growth in three primary ways.

Interviews: The Ariel Helwani Show set out to increase the number of high-profile guests it hosted on the show. By continuing to bring in the most relevant names in MMA, boxing, and wrestling, the show would cement itself as the preeminent combat sports podcast.

New Formats: In 2025, The Ariel Helwani Show aimed to expand its core podcast into new formats. By finding new storytelling mediums, it would grow its voice, footprint, and audience.

Remote Production: The Ariel Helwani Show airs live from New York. The goal for 2025 was to increasingly bring the show on the road to be at the epicenter of tentpole combat sports events.  

Strategy & Execution

In 2025, The Ariel Helwani Show cemented itself as the preeminent combat sports podcast by increasing its number of high-profile guest interviews and expanding into new formats.

Interviews: The show guest list for 2025 is the who’s who in MMA, boxing, and wrestling. It includes professional wrestling legends Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Hardy Boyz, and Paul Heyman. The show hosted UFC champions Ilia Topuria, Merab Dvalishvili, Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira, Dustin Poirier, Tom Aspinall, and Jack Della Maddalena. Champion boxers to join the show include Oscar De La Hoya and Terence Crawford, while entertainment icons The Rock and Channing Tatum also appeared. 

New Formats: In 2025, The Ariel Helwani Show expanded its podcast into a new format with the launch of Uncrowned Films, which serves as a long-form, documentary style extension of the podcast. The films leverage Ariel Helwani’s expertise and relationships to explore untold stories in combat sports. For example, “What is BKFC?” explores the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, and “What is Fight Circus?” looks at a unique blend of MMA, wrestling, and comedy. These films are entirely supplemental to the podcast, giving fans another way to consume the storytelling from Helwani and Uncrowned.

Organizations

• • Yahoo Sports
  • Uncrowned

Links

•   Website

Featured

• Ariel Helwani

Credits

Ariel Helwani
Host, Executive Producer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Eric Jackman
Executive Producer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Conner Burks
Producer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Jordan Kamzan
Producer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Frank Lenz
Audio Engineer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Andy Henriquez
Technical Director
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Petesy Carroll
European Correspondent
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Spencer Embry
Social Media Producer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Kel Dansby
Social Media Engineer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Ben Heffner
Production Engineer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Kirsten McAndrew
New York Studio Operations
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Patrick Hennessy
YouTube Manager
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Chris Costa
Senior Broadcast Engineer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Tyler Demcher
Broadcast Engineer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports

Christopher Heinz
Video Engineer
Uncrowned / Yahoo Sports