Frederico Lapenda, a leader and pioneer in the ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts industry, was born and raised in Brazil before moving to Los Angeles in 1987 where he studied film. In 1995 he made one of his fighters the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion and in 1996, at the age of 26, created and produced his own event, the World Vale Tudo Championship (WVC), which took place in Tokyo and featured three of the previous six UFC winners.  In so doing he became the first non-Japanese to promote a fighting event in Japan. Lapenda’s insightful and perceptive marketing paved the way for the creation of the Pride Fighting Championship and would make Japan the world’s biggest mixed martial arts (MMA) market. Lapenda’s WVC would go to become one of the biggest international fighting franchise in the world.

Through the WVC, Lapenda became the most prolific global MMA television producer/promoter of live reality fighting shows, staging events in Brazil, Russia, Israel, Holland, Jamaica, Ukraine, Belgium, Croatia, Bosnia, Japan and Aruba.  In 1999 he became the first MMA producer on US cable television with his weekly fight show, Combate Mortal, on Channel 22 KWHY, which attracted double-digit ratings.

Acknowledged as a “true visionary,” by Grappling magazine, which ran a two-part 12-page article on his life, accomplishments, and contributions to the sport of MMA, Lapenda also broke new ground by co-producing two of the first MMA documentaries, The Smashing Machine (HBO) and Rites of Passage (PPV), which are still considered the industry gold standard. He introduced pay-per-view to Brazilian television, and his WVC was just the fourth MMA show to ever air on US PPV. Over the years he has discovered and promoted the biggest fighting names in MMA history including Mark Kerr, Igor Vovchanchin, Pedro Rizzo, Marco Ruas, Heath Hearing, and many others.

In 2002 he became part of Peter Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment www.mandalay.com group as a filmmaker/producer and now hangs his hat at Paradigm Pictures. He has produced four highly-rated programs for TV's Fox Files, including Russian Night Life and Amsterdam: The Red Light District. In addition he produced MMA Around the World and Underground Fighting in California. His feature film credits as producer include Blonde and Blonder, Fathers of the Sports, Bad Guys, Shut Up & Shoot, Nightmare Man and others.