The beauty of UFC’s model is easily explainable with Rizin's recent headlines. | Photo: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com
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The natural human inclination towards nostalgia, however, often makes us overlook the flaws and downsides of the past while taking for granted the greatness of the present. That’s not to say Pride wasn’t a tremendous promotion that offered up many of the sport’s most iconic and memorable moments. It’s just that UFC’s approach to matchmaking has become so entrenched that we overlook how much more conducive it is to getting the best possible matchups. That has never been more apparent than in the recent furor over Fedor Emelianenko’s signing with Rizin and the speculation that his first opponent might be 1-0 kickboxer Jaideep Singh.
A fight of this nature would be completely out of the question for the UFC. A fighter of Emelianenko’s stature would be matched with a high-level opponent immediately, particularly given his most recent fights were against a five-years-past-his-prime Jeff Monson, a 10-years-past-his-prime Pedro Rizzo and the respectable but unexceptional Satoshi Ishii. In the UFC, it would be time to see how Fedor would fare against Cain Velasquez, Josh Barnett or Fabricio Werdum.
On the other hand, for Nobuyuki Sakakibara, this sort of matchmaking is not out of the question. The Japanese model of Pride and later promotions like Dream was always about building up stars with winnable fights. Fighters like Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Filipovic were given long strings of easy fights with the occasional difficult opponent mixed in. The stars were further protected by often being told their opponents long in advance while their opponents were offered the fight on short notice, without optimal time to train and formulate a game plan.
This model made a lot of financial sense. Stars lasted longer before getting knocked off their perches because they didn’t have to fight the best possible opponent each time out. Meanwhile, in the UFC, stars like Chuck Liddell, Brock Lesnar and Tito Ortiz have fallen fast and need to be continually replaced. Pride fighters also became larger than life personalities because of the way they ran through hapless opposition. Imagine what a star Uriah Hall could become if you gave him a series of overmatched opponents to knock out in spectacular fashion.
When it came time for the Pride stars to fight each other, those fights became all the bigger because they weren’t nearly so common. There wasn’t the fan expectation that the top stars would be tested severely every time out, so there was no outcry over the mismatches that kept the gravy train running.
It’s understandable that after years of getting big money to fight easier opposition, 39-year-old Emelianenko wouldn’t be anxious to opt out. That didn’t make fans any less disappointed in the decision. We have become spoiled and are used to watching all the top fighters take on quality opposition every time out. The frustration directed at Fedor was palpable. Even if he doesn’t fight Singh, it’s hard to imagine him taking on an opponent that will generate a fraction of the excitement that a UFC opponent likely would.
Getting to see all the best fighters compete against each other every time out is not necessarily the natural state for combat sports. It’s the result of UFC having an unprecedented level of concentrated power and creating a culture where fighters are expected to do so. Pride was not run that way even when it had the best concentration of fighters in the world. Even fighters who wanted to test themselves were regularly given lighter challenges.
This sort of protective matchmaking is even more prevalent in the world of boxing. Abner Mares versus Leo Santa Cruz was paraded and celebrated by the boxing media for months. Why? It meant two top-10 fighters controlled by the same promoter would be squaring off. This was cause for celebration among boxing writers. UFC does that multiple times practically every card to where it would be completely un-notable but for boxing it was a welcome break from the seemingly unending cavalcade of mismatches.
Many of us may have warm and fuzzy memories of Pride, but it is only today under the UFC’s dominance that we continually get to find out who are the best fighters in each weight class. Putting aside all the bells and whistles, that is at the heart of what any sport is about. If Pride had survived and emerged victorious in its cold war with the UFC, it’s unlikely that would be the case.
Watching Emelianenko’s great career wind down without ever competing on the sport’s biggest stage is frustrating, but it is also an excellent reminder of what the sport has become. We don’t have to watch fighters compete for 10 to 15 years only to retire with lingering questions. Those questions get answered. That’s the beauty of the UFC model.