World Builders' Guild Newsletter

When everything shuts down and your business is on thin ice, do you tuck tail and slink home?

No. You dredge up an island in paradise and invite the world.

The camera pans in on a pair of black gloves resting on the bloodied canvas.

Moments ago, Dagestan's Khabib Nurmagomedov unified the UFC Lightweight Championship by choking out interim-champion Justin Gaethje.

Gaethje would be the last test of Khabib's legacy before his gloves hit the mat for good.

Nurmagomedov capped off his astounding 29-0 record in an arena that nobody knew would exist just 9 months prior. The mostly-empty domed cavern is a destination where competition continues unfettered by the international virus response.

If you want to play, you have to take it to the island.

Fight Island represents more than UFC president Dana White's caustic rebuke to the establishment's crippling regulations. It's a physical tribute to the skill with which White and the UFC team navigate uncertain environments.

It's a Cathedral where the faithful worship the gods of Anti-Fragility.

When other organizations were in a frothy panic over the looming pandemic shutdown, the UFC was licking its chops.

Yes, your favorite sport would continue unabated. No, you won't have to wait that long. We're literally building an island where we can keep the battle alive.

The words "Fight Island" set the mixed martial arts community ablaze.

A whole island just for fights? Is it a deserted island with an Octagon planted on it? Could fans attend events? Could we lash our boats to it like a makeshift floating fight lab akin to Snow Crash's extra-judicial cult haven "the Raft"?

We were mesmerized the second we heard it. Beyond intrigue, beyond wonderment; this was a magical place just for us, the fighting faithful.

And Dana White built the whole world inside our heads with only two words.

Is the reality of Abu Dhabi's Fight Island as interesting as what we all dreamed up? No. Not by a long shot. It's a well-planned pandemic-free safety zone with luxury accommodations for the small amount of visitors is allows.

It isn't an underground secret-handshake combat zone (you're thinking of the Kumite from Bloodsport). It isn't bobbing in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It doesn't drift between Caribbean bays. It's tucked neatly into Abu Dhabi's highly-accessible Yas Island, separated from the rest of the city by manmade canals.

Does any of that matter?

No, because whenever you think of Fight Island, you think of this:

We know what it looks like in real life and yet the dream remains.

Its time zone gives it a unique advantage: the whole world, literally, can watch a competition together. Everybody can be a part of the Island even if they never set foot on it.

UFC built a tiny, mystical island world with two words and unlocked a universe of potential, strength, and unity.

Get your shovel. It's time to build.

Sharpening the Toolkit

• No links this week. Read these books and immerse yourself in the worlds therein:
• The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
• Gangsters to Governors: The New Bosses of Gambling in America by David Clary

To future worlds,

Matt Ventre

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