Mixed martial arts (MMA) is challenging boxing's hegemony among fight fans. Leading contender Ultimate Fighting Challenge has stepped into the ring, but can it deliver the knockout blow?
When Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. faced each other across the ring back in May, they weren't just fighting to decide who was the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world; they were fighting to save boxing as a sport. This, of course, was just the usual pre-fight hysteria that seems almost necessary these days to catch the attention of an increasingly disinterested public. With a heavyweight division so poor that rumours of Lennox Lewis coming out of retirement are regrettably plausible and even more regrettably welcome.
That's no slight on Mr. Lewis, but it is a sure sign that the division has taken several lumbering and unskilled steps backward since his departure. If the sport's flagship is failing to catch the public's imagination, headlines need to be found elsewhere, and the increasing number of fighters moving between divisions to make big fights could be seen as a sign that there's a paucity of talent throughout. The causes are many and warrant an entire piece on its own, but on top of all of its shortcomings, boxing now has a serious rival to contend with. Just how serious a contender it is, only time and global popularity will tell.
If De La Hoya vs. Mayweather was the fight to save boxing, the Ultimate Fighting Championship already would have performed a merry little jig on pugilism's grave and begun mopping up its disillusioned fans. It wasn't a bad fight, but it barely saved itself as a spectacle, let alone an entire sport. The real question is whether the UFC is that serious a contender.
Punch Drunk
In recent years, the popularity of this extreme and often brutal form of fighting has grown phenomenally. Once staged in small underground clubs and featuring the type of men you suspected had spent a night or two in their local police cells after a spot of training in a biker bar, it is now a massive corporation that regularly stages fights in some of the top venues in Las Vegas. These days, the fighters are rightly considered professional athletes, with those at the top becoming millionaires and household names.
That old image of two thugs savagely beating each other senseless still lingers in the public psyche, though, something that UFC President Dana White and his counterparts in the other organisations are consciously working hard to change. His efforts weren't helped by a recent incident on the reality show
The Ultimate Fighter, a kind of gladiatorial X-factor in which the contestants fight for a professional contract, when the fighters got drunk and two of them decided to test their manhood by bouncing each other's head off the concrete.
It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see between hooligans on a Saturday night, and it didn't make for pleasant viewing. The expulsion of those involved was intended as a strong warning that things have changed in the world of mixed martial arts. One suspects that the odd thug still lingers, but he's in the minority and is being kept in check, for the most part.
The Rules of Fight Club Are …
After taking over in 2001, the current UFC owners, the Fertitta brothers and President Dana White, are often mistakenly credited with making MMA more palatable for the masses by introducing stricter rules inside the octagon, but the truth is that the outlawing of unsavoury moves such as head-butting, groin strikes, and hair pulling was enforced upon the organisation four years earlier when protests prompted by Sen. John McCain led to widespread banning across the U.S. and the dropping of the UFC from pay-per-view cable television. If it was to continue to survive, it had to be dragged up out of the seedy underground and into the public domain, and the only way to do that was to adhere to the laws of the weak-stomached surface dwellers.
Originally founded by Rorian Gracie, of the famous Brazilian jujitsu Gracie family, and Art Davie, in its early days the UFC operated loosely under the Vale Tudo rules. Strictly speaking, it wasn't no holds barred; there was no eye gouging, no biting, and no fish-hooking (putting your finger inside an opponent's mouth and pulling on his cheek), and hair pulling and groin strikes were frowned upon, but damn near everything else was fair game. Vale Tudo has its origins in Brazilian circuses of the early 20th century, where booth fighting had been a common sideshow to events in the main tent. Reports describe larger fighters falling foul to smaller, more skilled, and often Japanese opponents.
It was in 1959 when a TV show called
Ring Heroes launched this style versus style form of combat into the mainstream in Brazil. The Gracies were heavily involved in this show, and despite the bloody and violent nature of some bouts, all of the fighters involved were skilled practitioners of their style - a fact that held little water when one match ended with future UFC referee João Alberto Barreto getting his arm broken after refusing to tap out when caught in an arm-bar. The sight of bone protruding from flesh didn't prove to be a popular spectacle, and the show was soon cancelled, but the seeds of mixed martial arts as a professional sport had been sown.
Big Hitters in Belfast
The UFC has now grown beyond the borders of the U.S. and is starting to export its product to Europe, putting on shows in London and Belfast within the last few months, both of which were sellouts. With the future of the UFC not yet secured, the fans are being treated with a respect you don't always find in boxing. Although the lineup for the Belfast show wasn't the strongest, there were still enough star fighters to have the 8,000 attending fans expecting a quality night's entertainment.
Former middleweight champion Rich Franklin topped the bill in his first comeback fight since losing his title to Anderson Silva - a fight that ended with Silva doing some do-it-yourself rhinoplasty with his knees, leaving Franklin with a Steve Bruce-esque honker and a comeback trail to travel. His opponent, the late replacement Yushin Okami, was expected to contribute an exciting return to winning ways for one of the poster boys of the UFC. Instead, the fans were left disappointed by an uneventful matchup in which Franklin looked more interested in not losing, his confidence looking a little shaken following his brutal loss to Silva, but eventually winning by unanimous decision.
As is common practice amongst UFC crowds, regardless of the location, the fight was punctuated by bouts of booing from the attending fans during periods of inaction or overly technical struggles. One suspects that few of the dissenters would voice their displeasure so readily if they were to spend a round or two in the octagon with even one of the less-talented fighters.
The other famous face taking part was the popular winner of the
Ultimate Fighter I series, Forrest Griffin. The former police officer earned a place in the hearts of the fight public by winning the reality show with a gutsy, swinging-for-the-fences encounter with Stephan Bonnar. Hoping for the same in Belfast, the fans were again left disappointed by a fight in which Griffin somewhat sluggishly tried to hunt down his opponent Hector Ramirez, doing enough to take all three rounds on the judges' cards, but providing little in the way of exciting action.
His apologies in the post-fight interview and his claims to an Irish heritage drew greater applause than anything he could do during the fight. Like Franklin Griffin, he was coming off a first-round knockout loss, and again the effect seemed to take the edge off a usually crowd-pleasing fighter.
Despite the lacklustre displays of the two main draws, the undercard provided enough entertainment to send the fans home happy. The sight of current Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture, Light-Heavyweight Champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, and the popular Englishman Michael Bisping at ringside signing autographs is evidence that the UFC knows it still has a way to go before it can afford to treat its fans as dismissively as many boxing promoters often do. Despite earning more money from pay-per-view fights in 2006 than boxing or wrestling, you sense that the men in charge are aware that their current bubble of success could easily burst if care is not taken.
Pretenders and Contenders
The question still remains as to whether mixed martial arts will ever supplant boxing as the public's choice of combat entertainment. There are currently several different major organisations around the world that could be classified as mixed martial arts, all of which operate under different rules. The Japanese K-1 is almost solely strike-based, and has come under criticism for being more of a spectacle than a sport, often picking fighters for their size instead of their skill.
Bringing in super-heavyweight boxer Butter Bean and Nigerian TV personality Bobby Olugun has done little to help remove the freak-show tag. The biggest rival to the UFC had been the Japanese-based Pride Fighting Championships. Just like its American counterpart, Pride was originally founded by a Gracie, Rickson in 1997, and again just like the UFC, it has ended up in the hands of Dana White and the Fertitta brothers. Although they've insisted that the two organisations will remain completely separate, we're already starting to see a crossover of fighters, and one wonders how much longer before the lines go from blurred to invisible.
Current UFC light-heavyweight Rampage Jackson made his name fighting in Pride, as did his next opponent Dan Henderson, who currently holds two Pride titles. The UFC had been criticised by fans for a lack of quality, criticisms that are being silenced by the influx of fighters regarded as some of the best in the world by fans outside the often insular walls of the UFC.
Zuffa is looking to build a monopoly by buying out all of the major fighting organisations, a move that if successful will unify mixed martial arts and its growing worldwide fan base. Those who count themselves as part of this fan base will know what it is that can make MMA a greater spectacle than boxing. The fights are shorter and more explosive, with so many ways to win that it's often impossible to predict the outcome. Champions are toppled on a regular basis and shocks are so common that you're never really that shocked.
Nearly every big fight offers that nerve-jangling experience of not knowing what might happen; no matter how good your favourite is, he's never far from defeat. Unpredictability and excitement are two key components often lacking in boxing, and are two of mixed martial arts' greatest weapons. Whilst boxing sprouts a new ruling body every year, the UFC continues to consolidate its position as the leading force in MMA.
No knockout blows have yet been landed, but boxing is reeling, and at its current rate of growth, it may not be long before the UFC is crowned the champion of combat sports. The future looks bright, the future looks bloody.
