The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) for years has been considered the leader in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), the pinnacle of the sport and what all smaller productions aspire to become; but is that still the case? No longer are the forums of the MMA world dominated by treads about the UFC. Instead there has been a steady increase in the number of competing promotions taking their share of the limelight, threatening to smite the UFC’s monopoly over MMA.
In the early days of Mixed Martial Arts the UFC was considered to be the litmus test for what works and what doesn’t, and it was quickly revealed that a mix of styles was needed to be truly successful in ‘The Octagon.’ The question soon became ‘Who is the best at mixing styles?’ At this time the UFC was still seen as the only forum where these Mixed Martial Artists could be pitted against each other to find out the answer to this question.
However, it would appear that the UFC is no longer sovereign. Promotion teams such as that of the Pride Fighting Championships are able to put bigger money on the table to attract the best of the best to fight on their events. The result is that the crop of good fighters is spread across several events and the UFC are no longer able to boast that they have all of the world’s best fighters. Yet, this may not be the sole catalyst for the demise of the UFC. Pride, the UFC’s main competitor, was formed in 1997 and for a long while after, the UFC still maintained their huge consumer power over the competition. In 2005 however, this power has deteriorated after having slowly been eroded away. But what can this deterioration be attributed to?
Firstly, the UFC have struggled to compete with Pride when it comes to purses. Pride are able to offer fighters a purse in excess of $250 000. The result is that the number of big names that the UFC have on their roster has slowly dwindled. For several years the main poster boy of the UFC was Tito Ortiz. In UFC 50 he faced off against Patrick Cote, but who before this fight had heard of Patrick Cote? -A sign perhaps that the UFC no longer possess the pulling power they once did. Once all of the UFC’s big names had fought each other they had no more crowd pulling fights. For a long while it appeared that Tito Ortiz was all that the UFC had to offer, a sentiment perhaps reflected in Ortiz’s cavalier ‘I’m bigger than the UFC’ attitude; evidenced through his desire to set up his own production: ‘Rumble on the Reservation’.
Despite this, the main cause of the UFC’s demise is the approach taken toward the compilation of the fight cards. The UFC are guilty of ignoring foreign fighters, and this has been at their own cost. Compare Randy Couture, ex light-heavyweight champion and Andrei Arlovski, the now undisputed heavyweight champion (following the UFC’s severance from Frank Mir), and the UFC’s flaw becomes immediately apparent.
Couture is the epitome of what the American man is prescribed to aspire to. He’s patriotic, has served in the armed forces and has now become the consummate competitor. As a result, commentator Mike Goldberg dubbed him ‘Captain America’. Couture has thus become the American icon and now features on all of the promotion releases of the UFC.
Arlovski on the other hand has been totally ignored by the UFC. He has been put in front of a whole string of heavyweights and has finished them all in emphatic style, still without receiving the recognition he deserves. Any other production would have immediately gotten behind such a skilled fighter and used him to attract the attention of the MMA community. However, Arlovski does not fit the stereotype of what the American public want as a champion.
A second criticism of the way in which the fight cards are compiled could be with regard to the number of fighters being included on such cards when their fight record is less that gleaming. It seems as though the benchmark has been lowered and the grade required for entry is somewhat lower than it used to be. The UFC once selected only champions from each given art to compete inside the hallowed UFC Octagon, however the modern yardstick by which a fighter is measured is his fight record. It is becoming increasingly evident that the UFC promoters are neglecting their traditional ethos by failing to use this yardstick and are thus failing in their attempts to select only the best.
On the same token, if a fighter failed to prove himself worthy of his place amongst the best, he was soundly removed. This same standard would appear lacking today when one considers such fighters as Tiki Ghosn who managed to amass a UFC record of 0-0-4; or Tim Sylvia who was found to have performance enhancing drugs in his system. Perhaps the UFC’s change in standards may be regarded as a contributory factor to its slide from prominence.
It may be argued that the UFC are simply allowing lesser known fighters to have their chance at making it at the premier level of the sport. However, it may also be argued that it is this feature that now likens the UFC to the host of lesser funded promotions seeking to take their piece of the UFC’s limelight. The gulf between the UFC and other productions such as Hook ‘n’ Shoot, Cage Rage and King of the Cage is ever decreasing, which is partially due to the UFC taking on fighters of the level usually associated with the aforementioned productions. The UFC no longer represent the best of the best.
It is likely that you have seen or at least heard of the Ultimate Fighter TV series produced by the UFC. With the aim of making MMA more palatable to the general public, the series put together twelve fighters they considered to be the best of the ‘up and coming’ in the MMA scene. Unsurprisingly then, you may have also noticed that eleven of the twelve fighters featured were American (the twelfth being from Canada). In light of this, when one looks back on what the UFC used to represent it is easy to see where the UFC are going wrong. The UFC was the setting of competition between the best of the best; nowadays however it is the setting where the best of America compete. Perhaps a more appropriate name would be The American Fighting Championship as that is what it is fast becoming. The few foreign fighters appear to be just a token gesture to ruse the American public into believing that the UFC have scoured the globe looking for the world’s best. In reality, the UFC have few foreigners who, although having truly earned their place, still remain ignored.
The Ultimate Fighter’ was a stroke of genius. In an age where the future of MMA has been dangling on tender-hooks, the UFC have released a series cut into bite size pieces small enough for the general public to swallow; and what’s more, it comes in their favorite flavor- reality TV. The finals received live ratings of more that 3.3 million and it has been estimated that over 10 million Americans alone have now seen the series in one great push towards the mainstream.
However, this ‘mainstreaming’ of the UFC may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, evidenced by the Ultimate Fight Night fight card put together for the 6th of August 2005. The card saw fighters from the series pitted against regular UFC fighters and was broadcast on cable television in America. As a result, the night saw a host of fights stopped early, which was probably a measure to ensure that the mainstream didn’t find the sport too brutal. Although such a fight card broadcast in this way may have accrued scores of new fans, how many did this watered down version of MMA cost? During a time where the UFC needed a good quality fight card its answer was somewhat below par.
The MMA fans that have been loyal to the sport have slowly become desensitized to what in the past was considered brutal and barbaric. It may be that the UFC has simply become too stale for today’s fans. What is being seen now is a gradual cross-over to the Pride Fighting Championships where stamping on the head is a legal technique. The type of fighting that can be seen in Pride more closely represents what used to be considered brutal. Perhaps Pride is the MMA fan’s next big fix. When one compares the latest Pride event with The Ultimate Fight Night it is plain to see why such a cross-over may be occurring.
So what can the UFC do to get back on top?
In short- the UFC need to remedy all of the above…
Perhaps bigger purses are the answer. After all, pumping loads of money into each event is what has made Pride so big. With production values topping American rock concerts and purses over double that of the UFC, Pride have been able to increase their popularity through guaranteeing well put together shows filled with top quality fighters. Pride fight cards rarely include any ‘fillers’.
Equally, the UFC would have to re-think some of their policies on who is eligible to fight. The UFC need to regain the image they had when their events were seen as pitting the best against each other. This would mean that only those with large or impressive fight records would be eligible to fight. When your status as a UFC entrant has to be earned, the status of the whole production is raised and thus once again the UFC may be able to reclaim the sovereignty they once enjoyed. To use the irritatingly overused phrase of Joe Rogan, they would be "…at the top of the food-chain’."
Mixed Martial Arts has become bigger than anyone could have foreseen and so the appearance of competition is only an inevitable result. The UFC will never be able to monopolise the MMA scene as they once did, but they may still be one of the biggest productions in the world. The decline in enthusiasm for the UFC becoming slowly apparent is reversible, as long as the UFC listen to those that really matter… the MMA fans. Whilst appealing to a mainstream audience has its benefits, the UFC would be well advised not to ignore the true MMA fans that may be leaving through the back door, as the mainstream enter through the front.
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