'UFC® Fight for the Troops' Raises Over $4 Million for Fallen Heroes Fund

“UFC® Fight for the Troops” Raises Over $4 Million for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund

Money Will Go Towards National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury (NICoE)

New York, New York – Spike TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship® today announced that its “UFC Fight for the Troops” event last week in Fayetteville, NC in front of 15,000 Ft. Bragg troops raised over $4 million for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund’s new medical center to be built in Bethesda.

According to Bill White, President of the IFHF, UFC and Spike TV should be applauded for their efforts. "We are profoundly grateful to the UFC and Spike TV for their extraordinary support of our nation's Wounded Warriors,” White said. “Their efforts have moved us that much closer to complete the traumatic brain injury center in Bethesda for the service members that are fighting for our freedom overseas.”

According to the ratings, 2 million viewers watched the fight live on Spike TV and was one of the most watched programs that night, highly popular with male viewers.

NICoE will be a $65 million, 75,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art treatment and rehabilitation center to provide leading edge services and support for soldiers with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Further, the center will conduct research, test new protocols and provide comprehensive training and education to patients, providers and families while maintaining ongoing tele-health follow-up care.

The project is being funded by the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), which provides assistance to our nation’s military heroes who have been critically injured in the performance of their duty, and their families. The IFHF previously raised more than $60 Million to support families of military personnel lost in Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and to construct the Center for the Intrepid, an advanced physical rehabilitation facility at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, which opened in 2007. Construction for the NICoE is scheduled to begin this summer and with its opening in late 2009.