Author: Jonathan Snowden

After months of intense negotiations, the deal has finally closed. As first reported by TMZ, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was sold for $4 billion to talent agency WME-IMG in the single biggest transaction in sports history.

Zuffa, led by siblings Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, purchased the failing fight promotion for just $2 million in 2001. Under their steady hand, the company became a worldwide phenomenon, spreading the gospel of combat to fans in more than 150 countries. The brothers will stay on as minority owners and UFC President Dana White will continue to oversee day-to-day operations, according to TMZ. 

“We’re confident that the new ownership team of WME-IMG, with whom we’ve built a strong relationship over the last several years, is committed to accelerating UFC’s global growth,” Lorenzo Fertitta said in a statement. “Most importantly, our new owners share the same vision and passion for this organization and its athletes.”

The UFC’s success in the decade since Spike TV blasted the sport to a nationwide audience starting in 2005 with The Ultimate Fighter has been truly remarkable. Last year, according to Fertitta, the company had revenues close to $600 million. But the UFC’s financial success often came at the expense of its fighters, with pay and benefits lagging behind more established sports ventures. Additionally, allegations of anti-competitive business practices haunt the company in court.

That makes Zuffa’s legacy complicated. While the Zuffa era was good for executives, was it truly good for the sport? MMA lead writers Mike Chiappetta, Chad Dundas and Jonathan Snowden discuss.

 

Chad Dundas: I’m sure we all have complicated feelings about this. The entire sport of MMA owes White and the Fertittas a debt of gratitude for swooping in when they did to infuse the dying UFC brand with startling boatloads of cash, savvy and enthusiasm—not that they would ever let us forget it. In the years following the purchase, Zuffa LLC fashioned the UFC into a glittering beast of a legitimate sports franchise. Today, it’s would be one of the crown jewels in almost any company’s portfolio.  

Certainly, original motivating factors must have included a full-hearted love for mixed martial arts. I think it would be naïve, however, not to note that the Fertittas also bought into a nearly completely unregulated industry, and over the next decade and a half made literal billions for themselves at the expense of almost everyone else in the space.

In a story published during the fall of 2015, Bloody Elbow’s John S. Nash estimated that from 2011-2015 UFC fighters were paid somewhere between 13.6 and 16.3 percent of the company’s total revenue. That means UFC brass likely pocketed the rest—roughly 84 to 86 percent of all earnings.

Even if you come down on the pro-business side of the political spectrum, that’s a remarkably one-sided split. Frankly, you could double those fighter pay numbers and they would still be shockingly low, especially by the standard set by most other pro sports in 2016.

A big part of the Zuffa LLC legacy must be that ownership used the UFC to make big bucks while most of the athletes got peanuts. Now, with a class action lawsuit pending, brain injury science advancing, the UFC’s TV deal on the verge of expiring and whispers of a fighter’s union potentially beginning to pick up steam, the Fertittas are getting out.

People will have different reactions to that, but it will never sit well with me. 

 

Jonathan Snowden: The UFC came into the space with this idea in mind. It didn’t happen organically. They studied the employment contracts in boxing and professional wrestling, two of the most abusive industries in all of entertainment, and modeled their own business on them. This was calculated—and amazingly successful.

The plan was to establish the UFC brand at the expense of the athletes, who became mostly interchangeable commodities. Not only did UFC downplay individual stars in favor of focusing on top-to-bottom action and fetishisizing the undercard, but they even made President Dana White the face of the company. For most of the biggest fights in the sport’s history, White took the lead role, making hundreds of media appearances and making himself the focal point of the entire enterprise.

UFC also took an aggressive approach towards competition, running in opposition to some and buying others. As a result, it’s been hard for fighters to find alternative employment. As the industry leader, UFC can offer better deals than their neophyte rivals—but not a penny more than absolutely necessary. Without options, fighters are forced into contracts that would be illegal under federal law for boxers to sign, giving away rights in perpetuity and giving every advantage to the promoter.

As a result of this market power, UFC has been able to keep fighter pay down to a fraction of what boxing promoters pay their athletes. This creates huge margins and profits, allowing the owners to pay themselves handsomely. The fighters, who give their all in the cage, aren’t so lucky.

 

Mike Chiappetta: Any thorough examination of the Zuffa ownership period must occur on several levels, and I’m not even sure we have enough distance to fairly grade all of them.

On one hand, Dana White and Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta were men of extraordinary vision, drive and execution. If they had been missing any one of these elements, the UFC might have failed forever, and MMA might still be primarily occurring in casino ballrooms and automobile dealership parking lots. Those three could see a global future, had a strong understanding of what it would take to get there, and were willing to put in the time and resources to make it happen. 

Their accomplishment truly is extraordinary. To consider that just over 10 years ago, they were in a hole over $40 million, and today the UFC is worth as much as the the Dallas Cowboys, the team with the highest valuation in the NFL, is mind-boggling.

The recognition for that achievement cannot be forgotten as we rightly take them to the woodshed for their treatment of the athletes, media and competing organizations. While it was not their job to advocate for any of them, the Zuffa ownership team was far too cutthroat in its practices, a stance that was likely emboldened by the lack of criticism from media. 

Zuffa’s erasures of several past pioneers due to behind-the-scenes conflict, practice of arbitrarily banning media and willingness to bury current stars for any perceived transgression are part of their legacy, too. And unfortunately, that’s part of the way they built this behemoth. When it comes to corporate culture, ruthlessness is as American as the overnight success story. The UFC can claim both.

This is not to say they treated everyone poorly. Amid the angry and disaffected, you will find happy employees and satisfied fighters, too. It is mostly a mixed bag, but as Chad mentioned earlier, the tide seemed to be rising against them on several fronts. Having watched so many careers end badly, the Zuffa team did something most of their athletes never did. They walked away while still on top.

 

CD: Now, we turn to new owners WME-IMG to mark the course into the future. At least in the immediate, we’re told little will change in front of the cameras. White will remain UFC president and I assume he’ll keep his spot as media front man, for better and for worse. The Fertittas will retain minority owner status, but Lorenzo Fertitta will step away from the day-to-day operations of the fight company.

As much as the product figures to stay the same, however, there are bound to be changes. Whatever sort of businessman Lorenzo Fertitta may be behind the scenes, he’s always cast himself as the level-headed yin to White’s yang in public.

Friends since high school and later his boss, our impression has long been that Lorenzo Fertitta is one of the only people who can talk sense to White when the bombastic UFC president flies into a public tizzy. With that calming influence now gone, there’s no telling what personality the UFC might take on.

I think one thing is obvious, however: WME-IMG didn’t shell out $4 billion to only slash into its own profit margins by offering UFC fighters a bigger piece of the pie. So if there’s any one thing we can definitely count on going unchanged, it’s the athletes are going to continue being underpaid.

 

JS: I don’t expect the new UFC overlords to change much about the way the promotion operates. Although most new ownership groups give lip service to the idea of maintaining the status quo, in this case, there is every reason to believe they are being sincere.

WME-IMG is an ever-expanding business. They may well have a few creative touches in mind, but they’ve invested billions in a wide variety of entertainment companies in recent years. The executive staff there likely doesn’t have time to micromanage them all—and UFC is a prime candidate to let run itself.

The truth is, the UFC is an exceptionally well run business. It has mastered the art of putting on a great show. The production is always top notch, many of the fighters are charismatic and passionate advocates and matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby are committed to matching fighters evenly and fairly. Unlike boxing, for the most part, top UFC fighters have been able to advance their careers based almost entirely on athletic merit. That’s an achievement worth crowing about.

For fans on the outside, there will likely be no real sign of a regime change. I think that’s a good thing, for the consumer if not for the athletes. The UFC ain’t broke. Only a fool would try to fix it.

 

MC: I respectfully disagree that we will see a continuation of the status quo. Sure, in the short-term, little will change, mostly because the new bosses will need some time to dig into the business, to gain a better understanding of both the organization’s capabilities and inefficiencies before moving forward.

But let’s remember that WME-IMG is a creative company with a huge reach in live events. Have you ever known any super-successful creative types who don’t have a million ideas they are itching to put into practice? This is exactly the type of new ownership group that will want to put its own stamp on something that is already successful.

In my opinion, they’ll figure that’s what is required to get to “the next level,” their stated intention in the press release announcing the sale. While many of the key figures in the UFC will continue to drive the current product, expect to start seeing changes in that power structure within 6-12 months of the takeover. After spending all of that money, WME-IMG will want its people in places of leadership, folks who have been part of the team before and understand the vision. That is just how the business world works.

The effect of that on the in-cage product will be the key to all of this. UFC has built a juggernaut, and how the new ownership team attempts to improve upon it will be worth watching. Is it just simple things like ridding the world of Face the Pain, or bigger changes in the presentation, like improved event pacing, statistics and graphics? Better athlete relations? There are definitely improvements that can be made, but wrong turns can be made, too. 

The team of Dana White and the Fertitta brothers has a complex legacy. Some day, we will look back at that era with a clearer perspective, but whatever we think of the shortcomings of those men, their successes cannot be denied. They rebuilt a sport, offered athletes newer and greater opportunities and thrilled millions of fans across the globe. For all that, even the harshest of critics must admit that in the grand scheme of things, theirs was an unlikely and amazing success.

 

Jonathan Snowden, Chad Dundas and Mike Chiappetta cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

For years the UFC’s calling card was its top-to-bottom action. Even if they had never heard of the fighters in the cage, fans knew on any given night someone was bound to do the spectacular. Unlike boxing, where famous athletes occasionally clashed in a battle not to lose, UFC fighters came to win.

The result of that ethos was unprecedented success. A promotion that was worth just $2 million 15 years ago is now valued at a staggering $4 billion. The mainstream came calling, and the UFC was happy to answer. UFC 200 was the cherry on that sundae, the promotion’s opportunity to announce to the wider world that it had arrived. 

The old UFC is well and truly dead.

With the salaries, pressure and celebrity that come with professional sport comes a certain amount of caution. Everything that made the UFC what it was is slowly fading into the background. The raw energy, reckless battles of will and underground feel have been replaced by a corporate competency that makes accusations of “human cockfighting” seem like they belong in the distant past.

Today UFC is boxing. It’s mainstream and celebrity-driven and has priced out all of its actual fans. That’s why Daniel Cormier, the bigger, better and sharper fighter, approached the aged, infirm and out-of-shape Anderson Silva with such an abundance of caution.

By his own admission, he was fighting not to lose.

“Sometimes you can do something very detrimental to you having success,” Cormier told Fox Sports 1 after the fight. “The benefit of me winning tonight was so minimal compared to the cost of losing. It would have been disastrous.”

As he mauled Silva on the ground, the wealthy thousands in attendance chanted “stand them up.” The fans who had built this sport from the ground up were long gone, sitting at home as ticket prices soared past $1000 at the resale market.  

Maybe that’s why, despite having so many competent and excellent athletes on display, UFC 200 felt more like a party that fizzled out than a triumph. In what was supposed to be the biggest night in the sport’s 22-year history, the unknown Amanda Nunes stood alone in the spotlight as the show went off the air.

In the era of the celebrity fighter, where Ronda Rousey can appear on Good Morning America and Conor McGregor can make worldwide headlines, that’s bound to feel like a disappointment for anyone who dropped four figures to be a part of the spectacle. 

UFC 200 was a party—but one that none of the cool kids bothered to show up for. There was no McGregor, who was the victim of a dispute with UFC brass. There was no Rousey, who was the victim of her own success. There wasn’t even Jon Jones, who was the victim of the UFC’s self-imposed draconian regulation.

In the old days, UFC could have gotten away with having Nunes and Miesha Tate, best known as Rousey’s punching bag, close the show, falling back on the altar of action to justify giving fans a club sandwich rather than the filet mignon it had promised. The UFC brand was the star, by design, and the fighters were just cogs in that system. 

That age is gone, a vestige of a simpler past. Just delivering an event is no longer enough. UFC has opened the Pandora’s box of celebrity culture—and now it has to deliver stars. A UFC mega-event isn’t sport anymore. It’s a particularly bloody red carpet, with fans responding to Q ratings rather than divisional rankings.

That’s why Brock Lesnar, a WWE wrestler who hasn’t appeared in the cage in five years, got the biggest response of the night. The man who demolished him in competition years ago, Cain Velasquez, was treated almost as an afterthought. 

Nunes vs. Tate was a fine athletic contest, but it was also a fight the UFC could have dropped on any of its numerous free television shows without anyone blinking an eye. It would have been one thing if, as expected, Tate had triumphed and Rousey entered the cage to set up the next big “must-see” fight. But that fizzled in the face of Nunes’ blistering right hand.

Instead of the spectacle we’d all been promised, a fighter who has never headlined a UFC event, who was the opener in her only previous appearances on pay-per-view, became the face of what was supposed to be a mega-event.

On your average show, this could have worked. But this was no average show. For months UFC brass and the media machine have been touting this as an event for the ages. With the expectations set so high, disappointment was bound to follow.

In this new environment, you can’t close the show with a fight like Tate vs. Nunes and expect anyone to feel good about what they’d just watched. Simply being UFC isn’t enough anymore. The company has created a demand for stars—now it’s time to let them shine.

    

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Cat Zingano has rarely been afraid. It’s something for people who weren’t the only girls on their high school wrestling team. For girls who didn’t jump whenever dared. Those who didn’t risk everything to achieve a dream.

Fear was for other people.

But last September, Zingano was afraid. Afraid she would never again be the athlete she was on the precipice of becoming after beating Miesha Tate to become the top challenger to then-UFC bantamweight queen Ronda Rousey. Before her knee exploded. Before, as people so euphemistically put it, “her loss.”

Worse, she was afraid of the consequences that would accompany that success she had once craved so badly, for both her and her family. Zingano was afraid, sometimes, of the silences—and the dark thoughts that accompanied them.

Some things you can never forget. They’re etched into your mind, the kind of memories that never fade. But white-sand beaches help. Melodic waves help. The absence, at least temporarily, of well-meaning friends with sadness in their eyes helps. 

Two years after police discovered the body of her estranged husband, Mauricio, dead of a suicide at 37, Zingano and her son, Brayden, were on a beach, looking for a miracle and a new start. On January 13, 2014, that seemed impossible. But, somehow, they found what they sought 8,000 miles away from everything they knew and loved.

“Thailand was perfect. I was around the Buddhist culture and everyone there is happy,” Zingano told Bleacher Report. “They have so little, but they’re so grateful for everything they have. And the food was clean and the time I spent was all well used. And my son was happy and I was happy.”

In Thailand no one knew her. They weren’t the people spoken of in respectful whispers, subjects of darting, worried looks. No one knew about her injured knee, no one thought to take it a little easy, whether subconsciously or not. They were just two more anonymous Americans.

In Thailand, the Zinganos found themselves again by becoming no one at all.

“The anniversary came and went and we paid respects to it,” Zingano said. “And we were able to be sad but unplugged. I just didn’t want to lay in bed in the dark of the winter. It was like, all right, let’s get out and we’re gonna go out to eat and we’re gonna sit near some clean, beautiful sand and be around smiling, happy people that  have no idea who we are.

“It was productive, you know, it was a step in the right direction as far as what I wanted the anniversary to be like versus just having to be so sad and confusing.”

She and her son found peace in Thailand—they also found violence. Brayden had his first real Muay Thai experience in the land of the sport’s origin. Cat reunited with an old coach, the legendary Sakmongkol Sithchuchok, a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

These were Zingano’s first tentative steps back into the world of mixed martial arts. For the first time since her 14-second loss to Rousey back in 2015, for the first time since really processing the loss of her coach and partner, Zingano was thinking seriously about an Octagon return.

And, this time, against Julianna Pena at UFC 200, she was ready to fight for herself.

Leister Bowling was the toughest kid at Lyons High School in Boulder, Colorado. That didn’t intimidate Cathilee Albert, who walked up to him in front of his friends and challenged him. As a three-time champion, he had something she wanted—wrestling knowledge. And she was willing to go through hell to get it.

In the wrestling room that day, Bowling cracked Albert’s orbital bone, trying to get the future Cat Zingano to quit. He had no idea the force of nature he was dealing with.

“The message I got from it while he was just beating the crap out of me was, man, I have so much to  work on,” Zingano said with a laugh. “You know this should not be that easy for me to just be destroyed like this right now. In my head, while I’m getting the crap beat out of me, I’m taking mental notes.

“I didn’t realize what he was doing was trying to mentally and physically break me so I wouldn’t come back. I took it as, all right, if I want to be at the same level as this guy, then I need to find a way to learn how to be as good as him and to not let this kind of thing happen to me.”

Zingano understood she was making the boys uncomfortable. But that wasn’t about to stop her once her interest was piqued.

“It just kind of drove her to do it even more. When Leister hit her, that’s the switch. Like ‘Really? I’m going to prove you wrong. Everything in me wants to prove to you I belong.’ And she did,” childhood friend Bevin Mcleod said.

“She’s always been a pioneer in that way, the kind of person to do things people tell her she can’t do. As a girl, in an all-guys sport, people told her she couldn’t do it. So she wanted to.

“I watched her all through high school and thought she was insane. But she was really committed to it. It was kind of par for the course of being friends with her. You were going to see her trying stuff that got her hurt. She’s had so many injuries and surgeries. It didn’t really stand out to me as anything more than normal Cathilee life.”

In the end, Zingano won Bowling over and the two became lifelong friends. It was hard, after all, not to be impressed. Wrestling gave her purpose and, at 130 and 135 pounds, she turned plenty of heads in what had always been an all-boys club. Along the way, she built the competitive base that would serve her well when her adult life took the strange turn into professional fisticuffs.

“Wrestling was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Zingano said. “I know what that feels like on the receiving end, so that’s what I try to do to people that I’m up against is mimic that feeling. But, because my opponents haven’t gone through that or the majority of them haven’t gone through that, they don’t know.

“I know the sounds they make when they’re getting close to breaking. I know the ways that they breathe, I know the body mechanics of somebody that just wants out. Even when they don’t even realize it yet.”

The pre-paid jiu jitsu lessons were purchased for her high school sweetheart. But the two had broken up and Cat didn’t believe in letting things go to waste.  That’s how, in 2007, after years removed from the mats, Zingano found herself grappling again. It’s also how, soon after, she found herself in love.

“Mauricio was so impressive. Strong and skilled and funny,” Zingano remembered. “And jiu jitsu was something I could throw myself into just like I had with wrestling.”

Her wrestling experience served her well in this new world. Trophies and tournament wins came. Later professional cage fights. All, she realizes now, to please him. Soon enough, the wins piled up.

“The girl just beat my ass. I had never had a swollen face and bruised-up body the way I did after that fight. I still haven’t to this day,” Invicta 125-pound champion Barb Honchak said. “Her strength, agility and ability to improvise and come up with things on the fly are amazing. She has such amazing body awareness from all her years of fighting and grappling she can pull off some incredible stuff.

“She does this suplex—I remember watching video of her before our fight doing that to Mauricio in  practice and telling my coaches she would never do that to me. And then she did it and I was like ‘dang.’ And she’s done it a couple of times in the Octagon since. She has this incredible athleticism that allows her to do stuff like that. Only a fraction of that can be taught.”

Honchak found herself drawn into the Zinganos’ orbit, training with Cat and her team during the day while sleeping on their couch at night.

“In the beginning it was good,” Honchak said. “They were both happy and very much in love. And then things changed. I would go there and see changes in them. Cat went from being super happy, bubbly and playful to being visibly stressed and lethargic, almost to the point of being catatonic at times.”

Zingano was still learning from her coach, who happened to be her husband. Many of the lessons were physical, including Mauricio cornering Cat in the boxing ring and pounding on her until she cried. He was teaching toughness and creating the kind of comfort with violence a fighter needs to succeed. But the dual hats, in time, began to wear on the couple.

“It’s difficult. Because you have to look at your coach as sergeant or your boss,” Honchak said. “Not as someone you can disagree with. And, when you go home, I want to crawl into bed and just be a person and be with my family. I don’t want to be a fighter for those hours. That’s a really hard thing to do when your coach is your family.”

With Mauricio, the coaching never stopped. Not at dinner, not at night before bed. Not ever. And the results spoke for themselves, at least in his mind. Zingano, who quickly added diverse skills to her wrestling base, became one of the best women fighters in the world.

In April of 2013, an upset win over Tate stamped Zingano’s ticket to the big time. The first mom to ever step foot in the UFC’s Octagon earned a spot opposite Rousey on The Ultimate Fighter reality show, and an opportunity to fight for the world championship.

“It’s much easier to beat up an assh–e,” Zingano said of Tate, one of the few people who you can get her to say a bad word about. “During the fight there was a point where she pushed off of my face unnecessarily when she was getting up. she did a lot of things to influence that performance.

“However, I will say that I feel like that is the worst performance I’d ever had. You know that’s the first two rounds I’d ever lost. it was really humbling. You know it definitely showed me how I want my mind to be when I’m in these fights. It definitely showed me how I want my personal life to be in these fights.”

She had advanced to the top of the mountain in her professional life. But as her fighting career flourished, the Zinganos’ relationship was falling apart. 

“Mauricio was incredibly controlling,” Mcleod said. “His huge focus was money and work. There was no separation for them between work and home. He was her coach, he was her boss, he was her husband, he was her son’s father. They got no time apart. He controlled the finances, he controlled the social media. Her schedule. Everything. She felt incredibly owned.

“There were some knock-down, drag-out fights they ended up in at that time. To the point where the cops were called. And they trained the Denver police. So all those guys knew them and didn’t know how to handle things. I remember they took her away, and she called me the next day from the hospital. Basically the psych ward. Saying it felt good just to have some peace and quiet.”

A devastating knee injury just a month after the Tate fight made a bad situation worse. It cost her a year of her career and her title shot. Soon enough, though, it was no more than an afterthought. On January 13, 2014, her estranged husband, Mauricio, committed suicide. Life as she knew it was over.

“She was a mess,” Honchak said. “She didn’t know which way was up. She was lost. It shocked her. I don’t even know how to describe it. Her world went upside down and backwards and sideways all at the same time. She lost everything that she knew. 

“When I got there, she was in a state where she still hadn’t really accepted what had happened. Reality hadn’t yet set in. At the same time, she had to deal with the morgue and legal issues and everything that happens when someone in your family dies.”

Not knowing what else to do, Zingano turned to the only thing she hoped could see her through the storm—the consistency and structure of sport.

“At one point getting back in there and not letting the circumstances of what’s happened to me define me was the goal,” Zingano said. “I needed to fight one more time because I didn’t want what happened to me to be why I never get in there again.”

Eight months later, she was back in the cage against fellow contender Amanda Nunes.

“Cat went through two really horrific things,” strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow said. “She went through a major injury and then the unthinkable death of her husband. Just like anybody she was rattled. ‘Why is this happening?’ But she quickly flipped a switch that said ‘I can’t sit around here and feel sorry for myself. I’ve got to pick up the pieces and start putting things back together.’

“What she did was go back to what she knows—her training. And that allowed her to deal with the life issues she was having. As hard as it was, it helped give her the stability she was really looking for.”

For five minutes, the quick return looked like a very bad idea. Nunes battered Zingano, at times to the point it seemed the fight might be stopped. Instead, the former top contender rallied and stopped the fight with brutal elbows in the third to maintain her undefeated record. 

For the first time, she’d won a bout without Mauricio in her corner. She had proved she could see it through alone. But, in that moment of glory, she found herself looking for someone to share it with.

“Mauricio always went into the cage and lifted her up after the fight,” Honchak said. “She would run to him, he would run to her, and he would lift her up…Her primary coaches went in and they didn’t pick her up. I think I even yelled ‘you have to lift her up.’ And they didn’t.

“And I could see her looking around wondering ‘who is going to pick me up?’ It hit her then that he wasn’t there. But I think she also realized she did it without him. And she could do it without him. It was a defining moment. She could stay in the sport and fight for herself and not for him.”

It was, in a strange way, a very private moment. Strangers, millions of them, watched in awe as Zingano worked through 17 months of bitterness, frustration and grief.

“Watch her expression right after they call the fight, it was a very cathartic moment for her,” Landow said. “All those feelings that had built up, everything that she’d dealt with, that was a massive dump of emotions. It’s not just the thrill of victory. There was something bigger there.”

Mcleod agrees. The win, she says, allowed Zingano to come to grips with her loss.

“It was a huge step in healing,” she said. “A lot of that emotion was her throwing it in his face, because she still had a lot of anger at that point for leaving her and Brayden. She was saying ‘See? I can do this without you.'”

Zingano had gone through a year-and-a-half of hell to find herself right back where she’d started—as the top contender in the bantamweight class. But the emotional scars from Mauricio’s suicide didn’t scab over as easily as that. Neither, it turns out, did the beating from Nunes.

“That whole first round, I just got my head caved in,” Zingano said. “I was dizzy, I couldn’t be in light for a month. I put on like 30 pounds because my pituitary gland got knocked around and my hormones were all screwed up. I had never been hit like that in a fight.

“You know, it really freaked me out because it was like, man, I am my son’s only parent. If I’m all screwed up and I can’t drive and I can’t work and say this injury is so bad I can’t fight anymore…what if I’m incapable of doing that? I can’t get to the point where my brain is mush and I can barely talk, because my son’s life depends on my health.”

Doubts lingered—and so did a fight with Rousey for the coveted UFC title. But it was a fight with a twist. Since his father’s death, Rousey had become her son’s favorite fighter. The UFC champion too, it turned out, had lost a parent to suicide.

“When it happened to me and my son,  I remember thinking about her later and being like, f–k, like what did her mom go through? What did she go through? That was her dad. She’s just like my son. Her mom? That’s just like me,” Zingano said. “When I heard that about Ronda I was gutted for her, you know? And it was like, man, that’s why she’s so tough. Because things like that will break you or they’ll make you stronger.”

Driven by pride, need and a fierce confidence, Zingano took the Rousey bout despite her emotional and physical scars.

“The injury, losing my husband, losing my coach, losing my camp, my schools, my teammates…there was so much change,” Zingano said. “The fight I had with Amanda left me really banged up. But UFC was ready for that fight to happen. And the way I think, I don’t care that I’m hurt. I’m still gonna go win this fight despite all that. I’m stubborn like that. And I really thought I’d get through that fight and then I would take a break. I’d go win that fight, I’d be world champion and it’d be over.”

It didn’t work out well. In just 14 seconds, Zingano was tapping the mat. And then she disappeared from the face of the MMA map.

“I wish I had won, I wanted the win, I thought I was gonna win, but you know that’s not what happened,” Zingano said. “And now that I look at it objectively, would it have been a good time for me to be a champion? I don’t think it would have, for me or my son. Do I want to be the champion? Hell, yeah. But did I have everything that it took to offer myself completely and wholly to that responsibility? Honestly, probably not.”

Thailand helped. But, once again, it was Tate who inspired Zingano to find the desire to step back into active competition. Watching fights with a friend from her wrestling days, Randi Miller, Zingano realized, for the first time since the Rousey fight, that she was ready to once again do what she does best.

“Holly (Holm) and Miesha fought, and I don’t  know what it was about that fight, but when I watched them fight, you know before either person won, I was just like, this is the level I’m at,” Zingano said. “This is where I’m supposed to be. I want to get back in there. I want to fight these girls. I know I’m better than both of them. I know that I have everything it takes to go out and beat both of them.

“For me to fight the way I’m capable of, like I needed to be excited, I needed to want to be in there. And I feel like, for a long time, I’d lost that. I wanted to be stoked, like I wanted to have that hunger to get back in there and I was wondering and waiting if that hunger was ever gonna come back. And something about watching those fights that night, I was immediately hungry and excited.”

There was just one problem. Or, more accurately, 40 problems—her weight. A professional prizefighter faces a strict allowance. And Zingano wasn’t anywhere near it.

“The head injury gave me hormonal issues, which messes with your energy, messes with your weight. I got up to 175 pounds,” she said. “I’ve never weighed that in my life. Like, when I was pregnant with a baby, nine months pregnant, I was not that heavy. You know and my whole life I’ve been lean and kind of jacked.

“I could eat lettuce and water and I was still not losing weight. I was feeling tired and I was feeling  depressed and I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think right, everything was off. And I went to all these doctors in Colorado and they’re looking at my blood  panels and telling me ‘Your hormones are all screwed up. But the stuff that you have to take to fix it are banned substances.’ And that would mean that I’d need to take them and get off of them for my fights, which would bring me back to feeling like crap, and you don’t want to fight feeling like crap.”

But the combination of rest, both physical and emotional, helped. So did her new team at Alliance MMA in San Diego, California, who had worked through a similar issue with another fighter. Now, with her return just a day away, Zingano is finally starting to feel like herself again.

“I never stopped training. You know I stopped fighting—when I was injured, when I lost my husband, I stopped when I needed to take  the break. But I never stopped training because training is my therapy,” Zingano said. “I’ve continued to improve. I’ve been training continuously just like these girls that have continued to fight. I know in the eyes of the fan, I haven’t been on TV and the show went on without me. But I didn’t stop working towards my goals. I never have.

“I’ve had this struggle with trying to figure out what’s more important to me—rematching and avenging my loss to Ronda or going and getting that belt. I can’t decide. But the fact that my goals are still set that high, it means I still want this.

“And that’s crazy to me and it’s awesome to me. It’s awesome to realize that, once again, I’m much more predator than prey.”

 

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

After five years of settling for “almost,” Bellator lightweight Patricky “Pitbull” Freire (16-7) is finally fighting for the promotion’s top prize. Twice Freire advanced to the finals of a tournament to decide the top contender. Twice he fell short. But in the sixteenth bout of his Bellator tenure, the ferocious 30-year-old Brazilian will fight Michael Chandler (14-3) for the belt Friday night in St. Louis, Missouri.

In some ways it’s a long time coming. In other ways, his brother and grappling coach Patricio Freire says the timing couldn’t be better.

“Patricky is a new fighter,” Freire told Bleacher Report through a translator.

He evolved a lot. For this fight, theoretically, we won’t be surprised by anything. We defined the strategy really well and had a deep analysis of Michael Chandler. There isn’t a single hole we could find that wasn’t worked on, either offensively or defensively. If God permits we’ll be bringing the belt home. Everything has been carefully planned and executed and I believe in our work.

For (Patricky) Freire the key has been the addition of Felipe Lima, a mental coach who helped him get through a rigorous training camp. In the past Freire had been sensitive to criticisms, and camps would sometimes devolve into acrimony. With the help of Lima, who sat down separately with both the fighter and his coaches, those conflicts were a thing of the past. 

“I raised my confidence level, I learned of who I am, what I’m capable of doing,” Freire said through a translator. “It’s a great psychological work, I’ve been remembering things, opening my mind to new things and realizing that I can do a lot of things. I’ve done a lot of impressive things before and I can do much more than that. That’s what he’s been working with me.

“He’s always strengthening me, always lifting my spirit and showing how much I can do and who I am. I can never forget who I am, what I did and what I’m still gonna do. It’s a very important job that I found wonderful.”

Freire‘s confidence level and approach were so different, he even sparred with his brother, himself a former Bellator champion, for the first time in years. This time out, Patricio was his main opponent during camp, doing a wicked Chandler impersonation and pushing his younger brother to the limit.

“Patricio is a extraordinary guy, highly strategic, he knows how to work the right time to brawl and the right time to use strategy,” (Patricky) Freire said. “Spar with him was awesome. The simple fact of having him as a sparring, but also that we didn’t have any conflicts like we had in the past, we didn’t get emotional, he was always pressuring me, correcting me and forcing me to do everything I have to do in the fight. It was great. He was with me in every sparring session, two or three rounds.”

The difference, those close to him say, is obvious.

“It seems to have lit a fire inside him,” Freire‘s longtime friend and manager Matheus Aquino said. “He’s showing us he wants it. He’s facing his demons. He’s letting the monster inside him free to fight. He’s not content to just let things happen anymore. He’s making them happen.”

Freire agrees. Although the physical tools have always been there, he’s never combined them with the mental and strategic realms quite as well as he’s done in the lead up to his title dreams. And, while his team has found much to admire in Chandler, a fighter they respect for his toughness and athleticism, they’ve found plenty to exploit as well, particularly his refusal to abandon a bad situation when challenged.

On the eve of his first chance to write his name in history, Freire tells Bleacher Report he’s more ready for this than any fight in his long career.

“I’m feeling more confident, more focused, my head is better, my strategies are working.” Freire said. “I see that I’m capable of doing more. I’m feeling a constant evolution, both physically and mentally. That’s why I know this is my moment.”

 

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

In his glory days, the “Last Emperor” Fedor Emelianenko was the most feared man in the world’s most violent sport. Standing just a shade under six feet, love handles jiggling, he terrorized kickboxers, wrestlers and jiu-jitsu stars alike, decimating faces and bodies with winging sledgehammer punches from all angles.

Save for a cut stoppage, he was undefeated for nine long years, stomping a vicious path through five former UFC champions and the best fighters Pride had to offer. Even as he slowed down in later years, Emelianenko remained capable of the astounding, like catching a leaping Andrei Arlovski in midair with a one-punch knockout.

When Fedor was in the ring, those kinds of things happened routinely. His offensive prowess was matched only by an ability to survive the unthinkable. Emelianenko would occasionally wobble in the face of whatever juggernaut was across from him. But his humanity was temporary. Within seconds, his stoic mask would be back and he’d return fire without ever once changing expression.

That unstoppable Fedor has been more myth than man for nearly a decade, his spirit and aura of invincibility shattered by three consecutive losses in Strikeforce, each more devastating for his substantial fanbase than the last. After a handful of feel-good wins and a vain attempt to stitch back together his tattered legacy, Emelianenko retired quietly in 2012, taking on the mantle of elder statesman.

If only he could have stayed there.

Instead, his countrymen and loyal fans around the world were forced to endure a comeback that was every bit as brutal as it was embarrassing. Demoted to an internet stream instead of worldwide television, with chatterbox announcer Roman Mazyrov providing commentary ever bit as surreal as the fight itself, the 39-year-old Fedor struggled mightily against an underwhelming former light heavyweight gatekeeper named Fabio Maldonado.

In the early seconds it looked like it would be a short fight. Emelianenko entered the cage slinging heavy leather and Maldonado seemed content to absorb it. I counted 28 consecutive punches before Fedor finally took a step back to observe the carnage.

Maldonado, however, was still standing.

When his turn came, it didn’t take a storm of punches to drop the former champion to the mat. Just two were required, a right followed by a left. What happened next was not for the faint of heart. From the top position, Maldonado, the man who’d lost more fights in the UFC’s Octagon than he’d won, proceeded to beat the tar out of the best heavyweight of all time.

“What is going on?” Mazyrov, alone in the broadcast booth, asked rhetorically. “Fedor Emelianenko concedes these punches. He is stunned. I can’t believe my eyes.”

By the time Emelianenko struggled to his feet, stumbling across the cage in a desperate attempt at self defense, the fight would have likely been stopped multiple times by most American referees. The Russian official Viktor Korneev, appointed by Emelianenko himself in his role as President of the Russian MMA Union, allowed the fight to continue.

That was a blessing to no one, least of all Emelianenko himself. Both men looked exhausted in the bout’s final ten minutes, Maldonado from the punishment he dished out and Emelianenko from the beating he’d absorbed. The remaining intermittent combat was often sloppy, resembling the kind of low level slugfest you’d expect from a preliminary bout on the regional scene.

Though he would go on to win a questionable judges’ verdict, courtesy of yet more officials he had personally selected, Emelianenko couldn’t have possibly felt like a winner. He looked sloppy, physically and technically, and left the cage with both battered face and pride.

Before the fight there was talk of Emelianenko, finally, assuming his rightful place in the UFC. Afterwards there were mostly just sighs. All men age—fighters just do it right before our eyes. Fedor’s is a name belonging to history now. Let’s hope someone convinces him that his fighting career should remain firmly in the past.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Michael Bisping has been on the verge of great things for more than a decade. His UFC tenure, beginning with a triumphant 2006 star turn during the third season of The Ultimate Fighter, has spanned generations, surviving the rise and fall of Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre. Through it all, Bisping has remained a constant, always seemingly inches away from grasping the brass ring, only to consistently fall just short of it.

On Saturday at UFC 199, at the age of 37, Bisping finally won the big one.

Long after astute observers had written him off, following years of being the biggest name to never fight for UFC gold, the British superstar clocked middleweight champion Luke Rockhold with a solid left hand, then did it again, completing one of the most improbable career resurgences the sport has ever seen.

How did he do it? How did a challenger, on just 17 days notice, overcome some of the longest odds in UFC history? Senior writers Jonathan Snowden and Patrick Wyman take a look, minute by minute, at the upset that shocked the world.

 

Prelude

Jonathan Snowden: Some people believe in the power of science, of demonstrable fact, of analytics. I believe in the power of story.  And this fight had the makings of a great one.

After 18 wins and 25 fights inside the UFC Octagon, Michael Bisping finally got his shot at the championship of the world. As a storyteller, I recognized immediately how powerful this narrative was, how right it would feel for the legendary veteran to overcome the odds and pull off the impossible victory. 

Patrick Wyman: It’s hard to overstate the power of Bisping’s narrative heading into this fight. He only got the title shot because Chris Weidman, whom Rockhold had just pounded into submission to win the title, was forced to pull out with a neck injury. Jacare Souza, the only other likely candidate for the fight, had just suffered a knee injury.

There’s a word for that, and it’s destiny.

Snowden: Of course, not every heart-warming story plays out the way we want them too. And, in Rockhold, Bisping’s conquering hero faced one heck of an end boss—one who seemingly reveled in the idea of squelching his dreams.

“Bisping thinks this is going to be his fairy tale,” Rockhold told the audience watching on pay-per-view. “I will have none of that. This will be his swan song. I’m going to prove there’s no such thing as destiny.”

Wyman: There was absolutely no reason, based on what we’d seen in the cage, to feel good about Bisping’s chances here. The best anyone could point to was the fact that Bisping had been somewhat competitive in the first round of their initial meeting, in November 2014. Of course, Rockhold snuffed him with a head kick and a one-arm guillotine choke in the second round, and even the blindest optimist couldn’t ignore that fact.

Rockhold is an incredible grappler with a wicked front headlock and the exceptional counter-wrestling skills born of years sparring with Daniel Cormier and Cain Velasquez. On the feet, the rangy southpaw has vicious power in everything he throws, especially his variety of left kicks and counter right hook.

Snowden: As the two entered the cage, Rockhold maintained a carefully nonchalant pose, his sleepy dismissal of Bisping palpable, his place in the pecking order beyond question. And it was an earned confidence. His size and smooth athleticism were unlike anything we’d ever seen from a middleweight, even the great Anderson Silva. Bisping’s dream come true had the real possibility of turning into a nightmare.

Wyman: Rockhold’s biggest advantage over Bisping was in sheer physicality—strength, power and especially speed. Weidman is a good athlete by any reasonable standard; Rockhold put him to shame, and the 37-year-old Bisping is a full tier below Weidman in terms of physical gifts.

Even without the outcome of their first fight in mind, it was difficult to see a path to victory for Bisping.

And yet Bisping managed to find one. Let’s take a look at the fight, minute by minute, and figure out how Bisping pulled it off.

 

5:00-4:00

Wyman: Rockhold opens the fight with a smile on his face, and lets Bisping toss a few half-hearted feints and strikes while he gauges the distance and timing. Bisping subtly tries to pressure, but Rockhold backs him off with jabs, a right front kick to the body and a pair of low kicks. Meanwhile, Bisping falls short on everything, struggling to reach the taller, longer fighter with straight right hands.

Snowden: Rockhold’s smile disappeared pretty quickly when Bisping tossed off a kick to his knee in the opening seconds. But, other than that, there wasn’t much for either man to grin about as they felt each other out.

It’s not always obvious outside the cage, but Rockhold is absolutely gargantuan. Bisping, who once pushed former light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans to the limit, is not just the smaller man—he looks almost lilliputian in comparison.

Wyman: There were a few important things here. First, Bisping noted that Rockhold was slipping the straight right the same way every time. Second, Rockhold’s jabs—never a major part of his game before—carried real heat, but he also had a tendency to throw his weight forward, leaving him at a bad angle to Bisping after throwing the strike.

Still, if you were looking for reasons to feel good about Bisping’s chances in this fight, the first minute wasn’t promising.

Snowden: Bisping’s challenge here is evident from the beginning. Rockhold is genetic perfection, all tight abs, rangy musculature and perfect California tan. Bisping, pale white with a pudge around his middle appropriate for a man staring 40 in the face. looks ill suited to compete with such a glorious specimen.

But, then, looks can be deceiving.

 

4:00- 3:00

Snowden: In the first 15 seconds of the second stanza, Bisping lands the first real blow of the fight, a straight right hand. Rockhold responds with a series of kicks that back the challenger up.

Wyman: This is where business starts to pick up. Bisping’s straight right at the 3:55 mark was a beautiful shot; Rockhold slipped to his left, precisely the way he had in the opening minute, but Bisping placed the shot where Rockhold’s head would be rather than where it started.

Rockhold responded by going on the attack. He laced a vicious right kick to Bisping’s body, and then backed him off with a crushing left high kick whose impact on Bisping’s arms was audible in the arena. Again, though, Bisping landed the straight right, throwing it where Rockhold’s head would be after the slip.

Snowden: “He has some serious power, particularly in that left kick,” announcer Joe Rogan says, as Bisping proceeds to stomp at Rockhold’s right knee. The strategy here is sound. If Rockhold can’t plant on his right leg with any confidence, the hard left is an impossibility.

That little kick, quintessential Bisping trolling, gets Rockhold’s attention in earnest and he responds with a stinging left hand. Bisping is on the defensive, already looking like a desperate man batting his arms against an oncoming storm.

Wyman: The first real exchange of the fight took place at the 3:15 mark. Bisping stepped in with a left hook, which Rockhold tried to counter with his trademark right hook. Instead of letting him easy, though, Rockhold pursued with a glancing straight left.

Snowden: It would have been easy for Bisping to remain on his bicycle here, simply doing his best to avoid Rockhold until he could once again initiate his offense. Five years ago, it’s likely he’d have done exactly that. Instead, as Rockhold came forward, Bisping made the calculated choice to stand his ground. If he was going down, it would be swinging.

Wyman: Right here is where things got interesting. Instead of backing off in the face of Rockhold’s assault, Bisping planted his feet and threw back, missing with a left hook and straight right before landing a flush left hook on Rockhold’s jaw. Keep this in mind, because it’s the same shot that will eventually put Rockhold down.

Rockhold always starts a bit slow, tapping away at range and countering before committing to his own pressuring offense. That’s precisely the shift we saw here, but it happened much earlier than it usually does for Rockhold. Perhaps that was a sign of the overconfidence that led him to think he could eat Bisping’s shots in the pocket with impunity.

 

3:00-2:00

Wyman: Rockhold slams home a sharp body kick, and Bisping replies with that side kick to Rockhold’s lead leg and then a body kick of his own. You can tell Rockhold’s starting to feel more comfortable in the pocket; he counters a lead left hook from Bisping with a stepping knee.

Snowden: Rockhold’s confidence is intoxicating. Because he had already beaten Bisping easily and taken his measure in the early going of this fight, his sense of invulnerability and superiority is all but written on his face.

Wyman: The range here suits Rockhold better. He’s backing Bisping off with round kicks and front kicks before throwing punches in the pocket, and Bisping’s jab and straight right replies are coming up short.

Snowden: There’s no reason to suspect an upset is brewing at this point. Rockhold is not just initiating every exchange, he’s winning them with crisper strikes. Everything Bisping throws with purpose seems to be falling just short.

But, on commentary, Rogan notes an issue that would have dire consequences.

“Rockhold,” he says, “has his chin straight up in the air.”

Wyman: Rockhold closes the minute, his best of the fight, with a trio of vicious round kicks. First he goes to the leg, then the head and finally the body before planting a flush right hook on Bisping’s temple. This is vintage Rockhold: use the kicks to set the range, and then blast the shorter fighter with power punches as he tries to cover the distance.

That last exchange, however, showcased a problem for Rockhold: He left himself off balance and with his back partially turned to Bisping after he threw the right hook, and while Bisping’s straight right counter missed, the issue was still present.

 

2:00-1:00

Snowden: The final minute (spoiler alert) of the fight begins with a Rockhold kick to the body. “Michael might be hurt,” Rogan exclaims, though there is no sign that’s true. Instead, the Brit comes forward with a thudding leg kick to Rockhold’s thigh.

Wyman: Not much happens in the first 20 seconds or so of this section. It appears that Rockhold has managed to set his preferred longer range, driving home a front kick to the body and a jab, but it’s a lot of swinging and missing.

Snowden: Rockhold, nonchalant as ever, continues pressing Bisping back towards the fence. He lands a glancing, lunging right jab, but Bisping is unfazed. It manages, however, to throw the champion off balance, back to Bisping who is in perfect position to respond. 

As Rockhold desperately attempts to recover his footing, the unthinkable happens. After landing a right hand to the solar plexus, Bisping, he of the alleged pillow fists, thunks a clean left hook right off Rockhold’s head. With 1:30 remaining in the first round, the champion is on the deck and in real trouble.

The crowd erupts as Rockhold pops immediately to his feet, only to be sent reeling a second time with yet another left. Three uncontested punches to the jaw later and it’s all over but the shouting.

Wyman: This exchange was the culmination of everything Rockhold had done wrong—which, to be fair, wasn’t much—and Bisping had done right through the first 3:28 of the fight. Rockhold had left himself off balance after throwing punches with his lead hand on several occasions, while Bisping had shown his willingness to hang in the pocket and counter with the straight right-left hook combination.

That’s precisely what happened here. Rockhold over-committed, nearly turning his back while pulling his head far off to the left. Bisping missed with the straight right, but the follow-up left hook landed cleanly. To his credit, Rockhold recovered, but another left hook put him down. A few more punches followed and it was all over.

 

Closing Thoughts

Snowden: “Michael Bisping is the new middleweight champion of the world,” Goldberg screams as referee John McCarthy pulls the new middleweight kingpin off of his rival.

“Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness That’s why this is a crazy sport ladies and gentlemen,” Rogan replies. “Because anything can happen at any given moment. At any given moment you can be sitting at home watching this and just go ‘Holy s–t.'”

Wyman: This is why we watch and love MMA. The unexpected, the unpredictable, the shocking can happen at any moment, defying our rational expectations and leading to incredible moments.

It’s not like Rockhold screwed things up. He over-committed for a series of brief moments, and Bisping had both the skills and the luck—yes, luck—necessary to put himself in position to land the perfect shot.

Bisping had been training for this moment his whole career, and when it counted, he was able to accomplish the unthinkable.

 

Jonathan Snowden and Patrick Wyman cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com