In MMA fights, the pre-fight exercises on event night are so perfunctory that they’re almost an afterthought. You see the fighters making the walk from the backstage area to dramatic entrances, complete with lights, fog machines (on occasion), and contemporary music.
This, right down to the announcer introducing the fighter by giving their height, weight, win-loss-draw record, nickname, (if they have one), and full name, is part and parcel to the fight night routine. And that’s before their respective MMA mats see any action. However, depending upon the promotion, this is where the uniformity takes a hard stop.
The enclosure in which an MMA or combat sports contest can and does often vary. Today, we take a look at some of these differences.
MMA: Size Matters in Cage Enclosures, Including the Octagon
Any number of MMA promotions use cages as their enclosure for fight nights. Let’s use the UFC for the first example here. Even the famed Octagon isn’t uniform from show to show anymore.
Prior to the UFC being forced to go on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the promotion had been using a cage enclosure with a width of 30 feet for every show. Upon returning from the COVID-19-enduced stoppage in action (the first time that the promotion had to cancel events en masse due to reasons other than postponing a high-profile fight and being unable to secure a suitable replacement), the Nevada State Athletic Commission granted the UFC permission to hold events in the Apex facility.
The Octagon at the Enterprise, NV property near the UFC’s headquarters is smaller in size, only being a 25-feet wide enclosure. This slimmed-down version of the Octagon has yielded to exciting fights, and it’s perfect for use in The Ultimate Fighter television series and on Contender Series every summer.
MMA Fight Enclosures: The 10-Sided PFL SmartCage
Moving away from the No. 1 promotion of MMA, the PFL has had a long history. Originally known as the World Series of Fighting, the organization rebranded as the PFL in 2017 with a series of one-off events, beginning in Daytona in June of that year, before going to its season format in 2018.
Ahead of the 2019 season, the PFL announced that it would be implementing a new enclosure known as the SmartCage. This 10-sided apparatus is something unique in that the SmartCage deploys sensors and technology to help viewers of PFL broadcasts better understand where their favorite fighters stand at any given moment of the bout through Cagenomics displayed on the bottom of the screen during the round, including how quickly a punch or a kick was delivered by a fighter.
The 10-sided has also been utilized in Japan’s Pancrase.
MMA Fight Enclosures: The XFC Hexagon
We now move along to XFC. While it, too, uses a cage for its fight apparatus, it’s known as the Hexagon.
Given that a hexagon naturally has only six sides to it, compared to the eight-sided Octagon or the 10-sided SmartCage, this has led to an increase in jaw-dropping finishes. With the XFC touting itself in various promotional materials as “The Future of MMA”, the Hexagon is a proving ground for must-see prospects looking to take that crucial step toward the big leagues of MMA.
MMA Enclosures: Get In The Ring
There are other times in MMA fights where the promotion doesn’t use a cage as its apparatus for competition. While ONE Championship has been known to use an MMA cage in the past, more recent events from the promotion have seen it go to a ring enclosure.
If you’ve watched ONE Championship events in their usual monthly timeslot on Friday evenings on Amazon Prime Video in North America, you already know that MMA is just part of what they offer as a whole. In addition to MMA, ONE also offers fights in Muay Thai, kickboxing, and submission-only grappling.
Pancrase used a ring as its apparatus for fights until 2014 before switching to a cage enclosure.
