Entertainment company Space 11's veteran producer, Andrea Iervolino, has a long history of varied projects – and he seems to be seeking something out of this world for his next endeavor.

Iervolino has announced plans to produce a reality television series featuring 40 MMA fighters who will take part in an elimination tournament, with victorious participants earning the opportunity to fight in zero gravity in a specially designed capsule outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

"If you take UFC, it has a huge fan base," Iervolino said in a recent interview.

"My goal with this new format is – I don’t want to lose UFC fans, we need to embrace all of them, the whole MMA world – but the goal with Zero-G fighting is to make the concept much wider."

Plans for the ambitious concept will see the fighters train and compete with one another on Earth, with eight successful fighters then being blasted into space to fight inside a spacecraft as it travels around the Earth for 90 minutes.

Former UFC fighter John Lewis is attached to the project as Vice President and promoter for Galactic Combat, with pre-production planned ahead of a supposed 2023 launch date.