The 2016 MMA year began with a roar. In its first major event, held just two days into January, Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit produced an instant classic that will be a tall order to supplant as the best fight of the year. It was filled with sharp technique, brilliant fight IQ, unrelenting ferocity and unwavering will.
That was then. Now? We are in the midst of a brief, but unnecessary return to the sport’s sideshow roots.
To be blunt, both of MMA’s largest promoters—Bellator and the UFC—are showcasing the worst the sport has to offer.
If you follow the UFC, you noticed an inordinate amount of time spent promoting two neophytes on last Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card. Mickey Gall was 1-0, while his opponent, Mike Jackson, walked into the cage 0-0. To encourage media attention, the two were included in the UFC’s fight week media day events.
Who were these guys and what were they doing on a major MMA card? Well, mostly the bout between them served as a lead-in to the upcoming UFC debut of former professional wrestler CM Punk, who himself has never competed in a professional MMA bout.
There is rarely anything beyond a purse at stake for a newcomer other than a job and a win bonus, so these stakes were…something. I just wouldn’t classify them as particularly good or important. While seeking out new talent is paramount to any organization in any industry, few fighters are ready for the big leagues straight out of the chute, so the regional promotions play an important role as filters.
Generally speaking, the UFC won’t look at signing fighters unless they have six or seven fights in the books. Even its reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, limits tryouts to those who have at least three professional fights. Before Saturday, Gall, Jackson and Punk didn’t have three fights between them.
There is an argument to be made that sports are meant to be fun, and such fight setups are little harm as long as they are occasional. That’s a fair stance, but UFC president Dana White and the UFC brass have never been shy about reminding us that they have the best fighters in the world.
It reminds me of when I asked White for his reaction to Strikeforce signing former NFL star Herschel Walker.
“It’s ridiculous,” and “it’s completely disrespectful to the sport” were two of his answers, as he also questioned what athletic commission would sanction a fight with Walker, who at the time was 47 years old.
To be fair, it’s not an exact parallel. Punk is 37, a full decade younger than Walker. But his athletic resume doesn’t hold a candle to Walker’s, who, aside from being a football star, was an Olympic bobsledder, a track star and a black belt in taekwondo.
Walker’s signing wasn’t “completely disrespectful” to the sport, but it also wasn’t a decision made on athletic merit. It was a cash grab—same as Punk’s signing for UFC. White doesn’t get to trash Walker’s participation and get a pass on Punk’s. That it also included the satellite programming of Gall-Jackson is both smart (on the promotional side) and troubling (because neither had proven themselves to be worthy of competing at the sport’s highest level).
The fight between Punk and Gall is projected for UFC 199, sometime around June, which means there is plenty of hyperbole to come in the next few months. We’ll probably hear about all of the sacrifices they’ve made in the gym, Gall’s future stardom and Punk’s brave departure from pro wrestling to chase his dream. That’s all well and good. They are not at fault; they are just two guys embracing opportunity.
But the fact is we have no idea whether either of them is any good. And for a league that promotes itself as the home of the best fighters in the world, that is a problem.
Meanwhile, over in Bellator, we’re about to ramp up the ol‘ hype machine for a Feb. 19 event that features Ken Shamrock vs. Royce Gracie and Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 in the two headlining fights.
Shamrock is about to turn 52 years old. Gracie is 49. Slice is 42. Dada 5000 is 38. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s see how many fights these guys have won in the last five years, since the start of 2011:
- Shamrock is 0-1
- Gracie hasn’t fought since 2007
- Slice is 1-0 (his win is over Shamrock)
- Dada is 1-0
So the four have an average age of 45 and three combined pro fights between them in five years. What else needs to be said, really? Despite the honest efforts of the fighters involved, this isn’t high-level or even mid-level MMA; it’s circus-level. It’s just a thing to gawk at and later forget.
Every professional athlete has an expiration date, but expiration dates are easy to ignore when there is money to be made and eyeballs to draw. This is, after all, a business grown at least partially by a prurient interest in violence, and after having invested ourselves in these athletes’ careers for so long, it’s hard to look away, even for the final crash. That does not make it good, it just means we all hold some level of responsibility.
In the year 2016, Punk, Gall, Jackson, Shamrock, Gracie, Slice and Dada don’t deserve to be fighting in major MMA. The time has passed for most of them; for others, it’s in the future or not at all. And that means that while these events may be sports, they are most certainly a circus.
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