This post has nothing to do with training really, just my commentary on the sport of mixed martial arts as a whole these days. To give you some background, I first began watching the sport of MMA back in late 2003 and trained my first fighter for a K-1 bout in early 2004. The first UFC I went to live was UFC 52 in 2005, where the fighter I trained submitted Joe Riggs in a triangle choke in the first round. That’s the year I also began going to Pride shows and since those early days, I’ve watched just about every major card from UFC/Pride/Dream/K-a and been to about 40 major live MMA events all over the world.

Back when I first started training fighters in ’04, the sport was not very well known to the mainstream public at all. Randy Couture would routinely come and train with us when he was getting ready for fights, and we could go out to lunch or dinner or whatever and there was no one asking for autographs or pictures. Outside of a few occasional fans, no one really knew who fighters were or what the sport was all about.

Little did I know it at the time, but all that was about to quickly change as the first season of Ultimate Fighter in ’05 introduced the sport to the general public. Over the next couple of years, the sport exploded. By about 2007, it seemed like everyone knew what the UFC was and you couldn’t go anywhere with any big name fighter without people recognizing them and asking for autographs.

With Pride still going strong back then and great fighters like Wandy, Fedor, Shogun, Rampage, Sakuraba, Cro Cop, Henderson, Nog, etc. all in their prime and the UFC working hard to build its name on the backs of its big name fighters like Chuck, Randy, Tito, etc. it was a great time in the sport. I’d say it was the best time in the sport really. You could see good fights in the UFC and great fights in Pride.

There were endless compelling match ups, tournaments, and a lot of fighters that were just plain and simply entertaining to watch because you knew they’d come to fight every time. They weren’t worried about being cut and they weren’t trying to win a decision by getting the takedown and staying on top, they were trying to knock out or submit their opponent, period.

What we’ve seen over the last couple of years has sadly been the end of that era and an evolution of the sport into the mainstream. On the one hand, it seems like a natural evolution for the sport to become consolidated under one major organization. It’s happened in most pro sports, the NFL, the NBA, etc. all started out fractured and eventually become a single entity. Football wouldn’t be football if there were three or four leagues all competing with one another.

On the other hand, I think anyone who watched the good old days of Pride misses the excitement and the match ups that were possible when the rules were set up to compel fighters to fight, when you had guys competing that had been fighting for their whole lives because they loved the sport, not because they wanted to be able to post pics of themselves fighting all over Facebook.

To me, that’s the biggest difference between the fighters of old and the fighters we’re watching today. Guys back then just loved to fight, they weren’t celebrities, they didn’t have a Twitter account, and they didn’t fight knowing that they could get cut if they lost. Instead, they knew they’d lose money if they didn’t fight. They grew up training themselves in a sport that almost no one knew about and they did it because they loved it.

Sadly, most of these guys are now well past their prime, too beat up, too mentally fatigued, and too old to be able to compete at the highest level. In just the last year or so, we’ve seen Fedor lose, twice, Chuck get knocked out every time he fights, Tito pull out of every fight he’s supposed to be in, Shogun show up to defend his title fat and out of shape after his third knee surgery, Wandy fight conservatively, Nog get finished, Cro Cop get knocked out and unable to intimidate anyone, etc. The guys I used to love to watch fight are just not the same and unfortunately, they never will be.

The end of the old era of fighters is pretty much over and the new era, the era of guys that weren’t even training when a lot of the legends were in their prime, is upon us.

I feel sorry for people who never got to see the sport back when I first got into it, when head stomps, soccer kicks, yellow cards, and tournaments were a part of it. Back then guys killed each other in the ring, but were respectful of one another and of the sport outside of it. Everyone didn’t wear an Affliction shirt or think they could train a couple of years and then turn pro.

There is no denying that the UFC is not going anywhere anytime soon and I don’t see anyone else competing with them in the near future. With things as bad as ever in Japan, the UFC is MMA just as the NFL is football and the NBA is basketball. Personally, I miss the old days of the sport, the days of Pride, but those days are gone and they aren’t coming back.

It’s not all bad, however, the UFC does have all the talent now and that does make it easier for them to put together matches that would never have been possible before. I think it’s just unfortunate that by the time it finally happened, all the guys I wanted to see fight each other are pretty much at the end of their careers and the match ups are meaningless. The real question is now that the UFC has all the talent and all the power, what are they going to do with it?

Are they going to work on overhauling the rules and an outdated point system to stop encouraging takedowns above all else and rewarding conservative fights? Yes, I know this is up to the commissions but they have massive influence and could do it if they really wanted to. Are they going to pay guys fairly, even those at the bottom end of their pay scale? Are they going to put together the match ups that everyone wants to see while the guys are at the peaks of their careers? Are they going to keep following the WWE model of creating drama and building hype to sell their fights, or are they going to take a more professional approach like the major sports organizations and go after the real big money corporate sponsors that would be interested in a more professionally run brand? Are we going to see a continuing increase in the level of athleticism and skill at the top levels, or is the UFC going to keep building its pool of fighters from the Ultimate Fighter so that it doesn’t have to pay them anything?

Who knows really, only time will tell the answers to those questions. For now, all we can as fans and coaches in the sport is sit back and watch.

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts…