When UFC fighters stride to the cage tonight at the Garden, they’ll be adorned in Reebok gear the Canton-based company hopes will define the look of a fighter for years to come.

Reebok brand president Matt O’Toole said his company’s exclusive $70-million arrangement, under which the uniform debuted in July, has “really exceeded our expectations.”

“You have some of the most iconic sports personalities today across all sports (in the UFC),” O’Toole said. “We’re also learning so much about what an amazing sport this is and the potential that this has, not only for people who are training this way or participating in mixed martial arts, but as a lifestyle.”

O’Toole and UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta were both bullish on the deal in an interview with the Herald yesterday, despite outcry from some fighters accustomed to the catch-as-catch-can sponsorship market that preceded it. The deal made headlines again recently when the UFC withheld five-figure payments to a few top fighters, including lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos, for wearing non-Reebok items during weigh-ins or fights.

“I think it’s not fair for fighters not to comply with the outfitting policy,” Fertitta said, adding the UFC keeps withheld payments in the same pool it taps for fighter payouts. “It’s a very, very small minority of athletes that haven’t complied so far. It’s like when you went to school, you know? Some people get detention for being out of uniform. It’s not that hard. Tuck your shirt in.”

Former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, who faces Eddie Alvarez in tonight’s co-main event, said the Reebok arrangement beats chasing your own sponsors.

“I mean, Reebok’s coming in and investing money to these fighters and this sport,” Pettis said. “No other top brand has done that.”

Others have taken issue with the amount the UFC is paying fighters to wear Reebok — from $2,500 for new fighters to $40,000 for champions — but Fertitta said the UFC is actually paying out more to athletes than it is taking in royalty payments from Reebok.

“Heck yeah, man, when this thing grows and Reebok actually builds a sustainable business, fighters are going to get more money allocated to that,” Fertitta said.

He also sees a day where Reebok’s ubiquity is a given in the UFC, sewn into the very look and feel of its fights.

“I think we’re going to look back in 10 years,” Fertitta said, “and look at some of these fights back from 2011, 2012, and go, ‘Wow, did the UFC really look like that?’ ”