It would be uncontroversial to say that mixed martial arts is still somewhat misunderstood by society at large. Ever since the UFC debuted in 1993, with its celebratory emphasis on its aversion to rules and regulations, MMA has been remarkably prone to…
It would be uncontroversial to say that mixed martial arts is still somewhat misunderstood by society at large.
Ever since the UFC debuted in 1993, with its celebratory emphasis on its aversion to rules and regulations, MMA has been remarkably prone to the creation of myths.
What follows is a brief discussion of several of the most enduring fallacies that have followed the sport over the years.
As fans of MMA, many of you will be familiar with some of the more famous falsehoods that have persisted. So, if you feel like I’m covering old ground, simply view this as another attempt to debunk these robust fantasies.
Without further delay, here are the top five myths about MMA.
The process of cutting weight to maximise one’s physical advantages on fight night is something that we have come to take for granted. We have become so used to this pre-fight routine of starvation and dehydration that many of us no longer recogn…
The process of cutting weight to maximise one’s physical advantages on fight night is something that we have come to take for granted. We have become so used to this pre-fight routine of starvation and dehydration that many of us no longer recognise its inherent dangers.
Fighters cut weight. That’s just how it is, and likely how it always will be.
I don’t mean to generalise, of course. There is a safe way to do it. People like Mike Dolce have demonstrated that there are ways to shed pounds without compromising one’s health or performance.
Unfortunately, too many fighters are willing to risk their long-term health for short-term convenience, by engaging in a process of rapid weight loss that is potentially ruinous.
There are countless past examples in both MMA and boxing of fighters who were either oblivious or indifferent to the hazards of taking an unscientific approach to cutting weight.
One major contributing factor to the propagation of this culture of haphazard weight-cutting is that it is continually reinforced by virtue of its relative ease and its superficial utility.
Fasting and dehydrating one’s body to the point of desiccation does allow fighters to get down to their contracted weight. What’s more, fighters often get away with it for years, which only serves to reinforce the behaviour.
But when a fighter’s body is no longer willing to consent to the abuse, its protests are rarely peaceful.
Daniel Cormier’s well-documented plight prior to the 2008 Olympics has alerted people to the fact that Acute Renal Failure (ARF) and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) are two potentially life-threatening and/or life-altering consequences that can result from rapidly divesting one’s body of fluids.
However, extreme dehydration also has potentially lethal neurological consequences. Depletion of the fluid that surrounds the brain not only renders fighters more susceptible to being knocked out, but it also carries with it the risk of more permanent consequences.
Indeed, the death of Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim in 1982, after his bout with Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, has in part been attributed to his notoriously taxing weight cut prior to the fight.
The culture of weight-cutting is made all the more vexing by the fact that its advantages are mitigated by its sheer ubiquity.
While the aim of cutting weight may be to gain a physical edge over one’s opponent, the practice is now so commonplace that it is has become necessary just to compete on even terms.
The only way to truly gain an advantage in modern MMA is to cut even greater quantities of weight, which has the effect of exacerbating an already-virulent issue.
Some fighters have been known to cut as much as 50-60 pounds before fights. Anthony “Rumble” Johnson’s attempts to make 170 pounds were so extreme that one could have been forgiven for thinking that he was going for The Biggest Loser’s at-home prize.
Is there a sensible solution to a problem that has become so pervasive? The most common solution offered is that of same-day weigh-ins, but this would almost certainly compound the problem.
Fighters will always look to gain an edge on the competition. Introducing same-day weigh-ins won’t address the issue.
Rather, it will only make the process of weight-cutting even more unhealthy, as fighters will continue to dehydrate and starve themselves, yet they won’t have the benefit of a 24-hour recovery period.
The truth is that we are forced to view the issue from a libertarian perspective. We must respect the athletes’ right to do as they please with their own body so long as they are not harming anyone else.
For our part, we can seek to raise consciousness and make more people aware of the risks, in the hope that more athletes will be as rigorous in their approach to cutting weight as they are for all other aspects of their fight preparation.
Now that Daniel Cormier has fulfilled all of his Strikeforce obligations, it’s time to explore what the future holds for him as he transitions to the UFC. While no one is entirely sure which weight class Cormier will choose to ply his trade, ther…
Now that Daniel Cormier has fulfilled all of his Strikeforce obligations, it’s time to explore what the future holds for him as he transitions to the UFC.
While no one is entirely sure which weight class Cormier will choose to ply his trade, there is no harm in examining his prospects at both heavyweight and light heavyweight.
Of the former Olympian’s potential future opponents, bouts against heavyweight champion—and AKA teammate—Cain Velasquez and 205-pound champion Jon Jones are by far the most intriguing.
It goes without saying that these contests are purely hypothetical at this point. Still, it’s worth taking a closer look at how Cormier might do against the UFC’s heavyweight and light heavyweight kings.
Riley Kontek and JordyMcElroy have provided their own analysis of Cormier vs. Jones. You can find them here and here.
So, to avoid covering old ground, I will focus on the tantalising, if unlikely, prospect of Cormier agreeing to face his friend and training partner, Cain Velasquez.
It must be a strange experience to be as good as Benson Henderson and to continually be viewed with suspicion by a cynical section of the MMA fanbase. Just how proficient must one be at one’s chosen profession in order to gain majority approval? …
It must be a strange experience to be as good as Benson Henderson and to continually be viewed with suspicion by a cynical section of the MMA fanbase.
Just how proficient must one be at one’s chosen profession in order to gain majority approval?
It is a phenomenon that is almost unique to the sporting world. In no other walk of life can you be that good at something and still expect to be derided for not being good enough.
Imagine being one of the top five physicists on the planet.
That would be an astonishing achievement. Indeed, you could expect your local town or city to erect a statue in your honour, or name a day after you.
Heck, if you were one of the top five plumbers on the planet, you would likely receive more love than has the UFC’s lightweight champion.
Fortunately, Benson Henderson’s recent dismantling of Nate Diaz seems to have altered this perception for the better.
No longer viewed as a paper champion who reigns at the whim of the ringside judges, Henderson now boasts something approaching legitimacy in the eyes of most fans.
Then again, how long this perception lasts remains to be seen. Sports fans tend to be afflicted by a curious form of retrograde amnesia that prevents them from remembering anything beyond the immediate past.
MMA can perhaps lay claim to having the ultimate “what have you done for me lately?” fanbase. It is a cliché to say that in sport you are only as good as your last performance, but it is certainly true in mixed martial arts.
Fighters on the verge of contending for a title routinely fall out of favour after a solitary off-night. One needn’t even lose in order to experience this, as was the case with Henderson when he “merely” scraped past Frankie Edgar twice in 2012.
It didn’t matter that “Bendo” had bulldozed his way through a murderer’s row of contenders en route to his crack at the lightweight title. It only mattered that, once there, he didn’t wear the relatively diminutive Edgar around like a hat for 25 minutes.
Who could deal with such expectations? Controversial or not, one would think that winning a world title in almost any fashion is a guarantor of respect.
But while respect might have only belatedly come his way, Henderson can at least rest easy in the knowledge that he has finally won over the doubters—not that he necessarily cared in the first place.
How long those doubters remain silent depends entirely on him, of course. The next time he looks anything less than unbeatable, you can be sure that the naysayers will be quick to pounce.
The UFC’s transformation from a sports meritocracy into a league with a prohibitive focus on the bottom line has been remarkably swift. In years previous, The UFC almost had an aversion to the notion of putting on novelty fights, or fights that o…
The UFC’s transformation from a sports meritocracy into a league with a prohibitive focus on the bottom line has been remarkably swift.
In years previous, The UFC almost had an aversion to the notion of putting on novelty fights, or fights that otherwise didn’t make sense in the context of the MMA landscape at the time.
Sure, they booked Randy Couture vs. James Toney, in a matchup that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Japanese New Year show. But they did so almost reluctantly, making sure to surround the mismatch with a number of intriguing bouts.
I’m not suggesting that Zuffa have since even come close to the circus-like freakishness of that particular “contest,” but there is no doubt that standards have slipped over the past year or so.
I have no objection to the occasional non-canonical bout that exists in isolation from the surrounding context—I even penned an article in support of Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar.
There is a place in the sport for superfights and, for lack of a better term, “fun” fights. Not every bout has to be booked with rankings in mind. However, these fights cease to be novel once the UFC decides to book them every three months.
People will undoubtedly tune in to see Jon Jones take on ChaelSonnen at UFC 159, even though it appears to be a mismatch both in terms of size and skill. Similarly, Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz at UFC 158 will probably exceed 800,000 pay-per-view buys.
There is clearly an audience for these fights. But in a just world, Dan Henderson and Johnny Hendricks would be competing for the light heavyweight and welterweight titles, respectively.
It is as yet unclear whether this is the start of a trend, whereby the UFC values marketability over, well, plain old ability.
One could argue that the Zuffa brass have always weighted marketability over fighting talent to some extent, depending on the fighter and his ratio of ability to charisma.
One need only look at the career of Jon Fitch to realise that the UFC has never been entirely meritocratic. However, it seems clear that they have begun to place even greater emphasis on drawing power.
Such unconventional booking will perhaps be more bankable than the more conventional alternative, which will allow Dana White to claim that he is putting together the fights that the fans want to see.
While this may be true in a sense, does the UFC really want to sacrifice its integrity for the sake of a few extra pay-per-view buys? I would hope not, but it still remains to be seen.
Based on the reaction to some of the recent matchmaking, it appears as though most fans are hoping that the UFC is simply going through a phase.
Let’s hope so for the sake of the sport’s integrity.
The disproportionately large impact of The Ultimate Fighter on mixed martial arts has been so significant that one could justifiably devote an entire chapter of the sport’s history to the UFC’s occasionally polarizing reality show. Ask Dana…
The disproportionately large impact of The Ultimate Fighter on mixed martial arts has been so significant that one could justifiably devote an entire chapter of the sport’s history to the UFC’s occasionally polarizing reality show.
Ask Dana White what he believes is the most important fight in the organisation’s history and, without hesitation, he will tell you that Forrest Griffin’s boorish brawl with Stephan Bonnar on the Season 1 TUF finale permanently occupies his top spot.
The UFC president apparently feels so indebted to the pair that he views them as his adopted children.
While I sometimes think the impact of a single contest on the company’s then-ailing fortunes has been overstated, there is no denying it made a sizeable contribution to the subsequent surge in MMA’s popularity.
Looking back on that debut season, it’s hard not to wonder whether we should credit the UFC with the kind of casting job that would have made Steven Spielberg proud or dismiss it as a product of circumstance and good fortune.
One could make the case that the show never again reached those heights.
Some seasons have offered terrific entertainment, others have boasted great talent, and yet others have provided a solid combination of both. However, none have had the same potent mixture of entertaining personalities and enduring talent that were characteristic of the first season.
Just consider some of the names that emerged from TUF’s debut season: Forrest Griffin, Josh Koscheck, Kenny Florian, Stephan Bonnar, Mike Swick, Chris Leben and Diego Sanchez.
All went on to have varying degrees of success inside the Octagon. Some vied for titles, a few developed into solid mid-card performers and one even claimed a world title.
Given these facts, it’s difficult to understand why subsequent seasons have yielded increasingly diminishing returns.
Sure, there have been success stories since then. The likes of Rashad Evans, Roy Nelson and Michael Bisping are among the biggest stars in the sport. However, they have turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.
In a sense, the show has become a victim of its own success—or perhaps more accurately, the resulting success of the sport.
With the explosion in popularity of MMA, demand for the product has grown exponentially. Therefore, the UFC has been forced to find more and more fighters to help fill up its packed schedule.
What this means is that quality fighters who may have, in the past, tried out for TUFare now being identified by the UFC’s scouting system and given an immediate spot within the organization.
While this has allowed the UFC to increase the size and quality of its roster, it has also had the effect of shrinking the available talent pool for The Ultimate Fighter.
Also worth pointing out is that fighters now have a number of different options outside of the UFC. Though it remains the pinnacle of the sport, it is no longer a case of “UFC or bust” for mixed martial artists seeking gainful employment.
Rather than trying out for TUF, many fighters are now taking their chances with smaller promotions. The likes of Bellator Fighting Championships, Xtreme Fighting Championships and Maximum Fighting Championship are all viable alternatives to the Zuffa-owned promotions.
These factors aside, the folks who cast The Ultimate Fighter also bear some responsibility for the dearth of quality, but the organization has occasionally done so at the expense of potentially world-class fighters.
For example, Benson Henderson was overlooked for Season 9 in favour of the likes of Cameron Dollar and Richie Whitson. Four seasons earlier, Frankie Edgar was rejected and, wait for it, Wayne “The Wayeniac” Weems was instead selected to compete on Season 5.
Fortunately for us fans, both fighters would eventually make their way to the sport’s summit, despite TUFrejection. Obviously we don’t get to see what goes on during casting, but one has to think that certain applicants are chosen for reasons other than their fighting ability.
What can the UFC do to boost the quality of the show’s competitors? In truth, their options are limited, since their quandary is practically zero-sum.
If they consciously cast the most promising fighters on The Ultimate Fighter, they are not doing their best to bolster the existing roster. And if they continue to immediately add the best prospects to their roster, the talent pool for TUF will remain depleted.
The inconvenient truth appears to be that The Ultimate Fighter will continue to promote relative mediocrity unless the expansion of the franchise can successfully mine talent outside of North America.