Has the UFC Jumped the Shark?

Now, in the middle of hurricanes, Trump, and a (possibly) overheated stock market, here's a blog about something different and somewhat inconsequential: The mixed martial arts world, which pretty much means the UFC.

I have been interested in martial arts for a long time -- I have been training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for over twenty years -- and have enjoyed the increasing interest in mixed martial arts. But about a year ago the dominant organization for mixed martial arts was purchased by a consortium of WME and IMG for a staggering $4 billion. These are organizations that are not focused on sports, but on entertainment, and the UFC has followed the lead to increasingly become an entertainment enterprise.

In its first incarnation, the UFC was a little better than a refereed bar fight. Such as it was, these fights are what got me interested in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, because Royce Gracie, a member of the famous Gracie clan that brought BJJ to the U.S., defeated opponent after opponent regardless of the size differential using these ground-based techniques. I train at his nephew Renzo Gracie's academy in New York (In the photo I'm at the bottom right, Renzo is two to the left of me).

Then in 2001 the UFC was bought by the Fertittas brothers, and it was rebuilt as a serious sports enterprise. Over time it attracted top athletes, first men, and then women, most famously Ronda Rousey, that fought in weight classes built on a professional structure.

But if you want to recoup that sort of investment, you have to reach for a broader audience. You have to create buzz and spectacle. The poster child for this, of course, is the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Connor McGregor. This fight pitted two men who were undefeated in the boxing ring. One with a 49-0 record, the other undefeated for the same reason that I remain undefeated as a professional boxer. He had never been in the ring.

This fight looked more interesting than it fundamentally was. Mayweather promised to give the spectators a show, and the match lasted for ten rounds of boxing action. In part because Mayweather didn't bother to throw punches for the first rounds, and then let the exhausted Connor gamely trudge on until he leveled him with a barrage. The slow start could be chalked up to caution on Mayweather's part, making sure he understood an opponent that he had never seen in the ring before. Or it could be that he didn't want fans who spent hundreds of million of dollars to watch the fight head home after a few minutes.

This fight will mark the turning point, when the sport, at least in its most popular venue, will have jumped the shark. Former UFC champion Benson Henderson put it succinctly, "It's a very slippery slope when you have a world champion boxer fighting an MMA guy for the sake of money, and he can't knock him out in the first round," Henderson said. "He has to make sure he carries him a little bit. For me, that's too close to skirting the edge [of a fixed fight].

Now Paulie Malignaggi, a sparring partner for McGregor and world champion in two weight divisions before retiring earlier this year, has been trying to get into the circus by fueling demand for a grudge match with McGregor based on a falling out after a video appe ared that showed Malignaggi hitting the canvas during a sparring session. He argued it was a push, McGregor's camp called it a knock down.

In any case, there is more showmanship where this is coming from. With Mayweather versus McGregor we had boxer versus MMA fighter. But before that, we had the WWE star CM Punk come into the UFC octagon to get destroyed (surprise) by a UFC professional of no particular note. We are having a fight of 38 year-old Michael Bisping, who last fought a year ago, versus 36 year-old George St-Pierre, who retired five years ago. And we have another MMA versus pro wrestling bout being bandied about between Jon Jones and Brock Lesner. There is a huge weight discrepancy between them, so maybe it will be billed as David versus Goliath. It also could be billed along some lines related to the fact that both fighters have been banned from legitimate fights for failing drug tests.