There’s some weirdness with the UFC’s struggle at the time.

The Fertitta brothers are who actually bought it. Before owning the UFC, Lorenzo Fertitta was on (maybe the head?) of the Nevada State Athletic Commission- the very body who were refusing to sanction UFC events at the time, and the most important governing body in the combat sports world.

Obviously the UFC was hurting bad at that time since they couldn’t be sanctioned, were getting booted from arenas they booked, and were getting dropped by Pay Per View carriers. This decimated their value and the Fertittas scooped up the company for a song.

All of a sudden, now that they owned it, the sanctioning bodies agreed on a set of unified MMA rules, the UFC was re-sanctioned, and they started selling PPVs again.

It was actually quite a success from the very beginning. Their troubles were likely imposed on them by their prospective buyers in order to get the sale done, and all they and Dana White did really were take their foot off the company’s neck.