Mismatched, freak show fights and mixed martial arts essentially go hand-in-hand. The argument can certainly be made that the first few years of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) were all freak show affairs – There were no weight-classes, few rules and felt like you were watching a snuff film or something that should be illegal.
Eventually what started as a sideshow attraction did develop into a legitimate sport that’s sanctioned by an athletic commission in almost all fifty states but the freak show nature has never really abandoned the sport, even if it isn’t as apparent now that we are well past the days of opponents out-weighing each other in excess of 300-pounds, in North America at least.
While idealists have scoffed at Japanese promoters catering to the professional wrestling crowds, you cannot argue with the success. Boxers, kick boxers professional wrestlers, actors, comedians, baseball players and Olympic medalists have all competed on the grand stages for Japanese television but the biggest sideshow attraction was exported from Seattle, Washington.
Bob Sapp was hardly a skilled fighter but in the land of pocket-sized Asians the six-foot-four NFL-washout-turned-fighter with 320-pounds of rock-hard stanozolol was a box office smash and must-see attraction. The behemoths success peaked with 54 million people tuning in to watch him batter 460-pound Sumo legend Akebono for a little over three minutes. Yes, 54 million.
But it isn’t just in the wild, wild west of Japanese pop-culture that this takes place.
Zuffa, LLC, the parent company to the UFC essentially built their empire on fights that were far from competitive in the early-to-mid 2000’s — Was Royce Gracie really a challenge for Matt Hughes in 2006? No. Did we really need three fights between Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz to determine that ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ was the superior cage-fighter? No.
These were all fights that we all knew the outcome clear as day before they even stepped foot inside the eight-sided cage and every short-sighted fan that flooded the Sherdog board at that point griped how nobody wanted to see it yet these were among their most brought pay-per-views in the companies history at the time.
As the door of the horrific 2012 for the UFC is creeping closed we embark on a brave new world in 2013 with three fighters coming off defeats challenging for the top prize in their respective divisions.
Frankie Edgar failed twice to defeat Benson Henderson yet immediately jumps to the front of the line at 145-pounds to meet Jose Aldo. Chael Sonnen has never won a fight in the UFC’s light-heavyweight division yet he is challenging Jon Jones and getting twelve weeks of reality television to boast his scripted professional wrestling antics.
Yet arguably the most preposterous one of them is all Nick Diaz, who is coming off a defeat to Carlos Condit as well as his second drug suspension, gets to challenge for the welterweight crown “because Georges wants it and Georges is a good company guy who never asks for anything.” According to UFC figurehead Dana White.
For better or worse this is a world we live in. It’s not fair, especially to the former OSU Cowboy with a big beard and a bigger right-hand, Johny Hendricks who clobbered three contenders in a row to punch his ticket to fight the welterweight kingpin but it’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Combat sports have been promoting the fights that will line their pockets for over 150 years and that will never change. While the most passionate fans might care most for seeing the two best in the world fight they are not the ones that matter to the UFC’s bottom line and they are not the ones they are trying to coax.
The loyal, die-hard supporters of the sport will be there every weekend when the UFC promote an event but it’s the ones that care about large personalities and star-power that are the difference between a benchmark 300k show and a big-business 700k show when they get to the box office.
The flip side of this takes place in small casinos with a few thousand fans in attendance for Bellator Fighting Championships. The Chicago-based organization makes all their fighters earn a crack at the title by winning an eight-man, single-elimination tournament over three months.
While on paper this sounds like a great idea, in practice it’s heavily flawed. Firstly, all the champions are sidelined for extensive periods of time as a result, getting in the promotions circular cage twice a year if they’re lucky and it takes away their ability to make the matches that fans want.
A rematch between Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler was the biggest and best fight that they could make but their own rules forbid this from happening and as a result it seems that the New Jersey native is moving on to greener pastures as a result.
It’s worth noting that they have recently implemented a championship rematch clause to help put together the desired match-ups but the ‘pure sport’ version of mixed martial arts isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
My major concern is there’s a thin line between putting together the fights that fans desire and will pay for and veering off into professional wrestling territory which is a tide that the UFC has fought for over a decade now.
While the most steadfast fight supporters will turn up their noses at it, UFC essentially stole the business model of top-ranked wrestling organization World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Under the guidance of Vince McMahon Jr. he took a shady business held inside dingy tents and small-time gyms and turned it into a multi-billion dollar conglomerate.
WWE has their hoards of faithful supporters, some of which that have made it a ritual to watch ‘Monday Night RAW’ for decades it also has a lot of detractors that consider it a television show for children and lower-classed adults which is something that UFC needs to get far away from.
Two years ago I would be in favor of putting together the more obscure matches that garner the most attention but things have changed now that the UFC has mainstream attention on FOX. Now that they have the powerhouse that pushes the National Football League (NFL) behind them being seen as circus attraction just won’t cut it.
MMA already has to fight the homophobic remarks that will be thrown their way each time two talented grapplers battle for position on the mat and the ignorant typecasting of this being a sport for violent youths and Vin Diesel doppelgangers, the only way those things go away are if the UFC has an aire of legitimacy.
Simply put, if championships continue to be diluted and the original blueprint of finding the greatest mixed martial artists goes out the window this sport will look like nothing more than a niche attraction to those on the outside looking in.
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