When this whole MMA game started it was for a different reason than it is today.
It was no-holds-barred combat, bare-knuckled and all about trying to prove which man was the better martial artist. It was a Bruce Lee movie come to life, caged combat that Chuck Norris or Jean Claude Van Damme could only dream of competing in.
Some things have changed. Others are still changing.
There’s more regulation, more guys with more skills and more ways to bring more eyes to the sport. It’s not 1993 anymore and that’s alright.
But one thing has changed for the worse, and that’s the mentality of many a modern fighter.
Guys coming from college wrestling who are born athletes instead of born fighters.
Young men who’ve grown up studying and training in “mixed martial arts” instead of becoming an expert in several martial arts and then mixing them.
Fighters more concerned about pay cheques than chin checks come Saturday night.
The days of taking on all comers and letting the rest work itself out are all but over. It’s part of becoming a sport on FOX instead of a spectacle not worthy of pay-per-view.
But not all is lost in this era. Some guys still have that old school attitude about the game, an approach founded on showing up and starting a fistfight just because. The Ultimate Fighter 18 Finale will be headlined by two of the last guys around who are fighting for that reason.
Gray Maynard, a wrestler who worked on power punching and rode it just shy of the peak of the lightweight mountain, will fight Nate Diaz, a Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt who knows he can win a fight from his back even if the guys judging his fight don’t realize he can.
Both men are more interested in calling out names and finding fights than they are about titles or getting their faces on promotional posters.
Maynard, a multiple-time challenger for the 155-pound title, has sometimes been called boring and that’s sometimes been a fair criticism. What he’s never been, though, is opposed to a fight. He obsesses over his losses, arguing with anyone that he either wasn’t beaten or simply has to get another crack, and he’s willing to do near anything to get one.
Diaz, a former title challenger in his own right, has bounced weight classes and fought most of the best guys in the world well short of his 30th birthday. He hates judges, making weight and points fighters, but he loves the fight itself. He’s not motivated by winning a belt, he’s motivated by the chance to beat up someone who might be perceived as better than him.
These guys are a dying breed, the model of a transitioning mentality in the sport. The divisional impact was irrelevant to both men—Maynard wanted to beat Diaz because Diaz once beat him, Diaz wanted to fight Maynard because he’s a name in the division and he’s been around for a while. Neither one considered the bout on the merits of what a win would do for them or what a loss would do for them. They considered as a fight.
There was no talk of a title shot with a win, no discussions on game plans or coaching or who’ll do what to whom and when they’ll do it. It’s been about two guys looking for a fight and knowing they’ll find one.
There’s a place in modern MMA for the martial-arts athlete. Truly, there is. Guys like Phil Davis and Rory MacDonald are the future of the sport, men who will perennially contend based on athleticism and coaching and a “new” way of doing things.
But there’s always a place for a fighter too. On Saturday night, Las Vegas will get two of them.
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