A Brief Reflection on 15 Years of the UFC

There are volumes to be written about the last three years of the UFC alone. The staggering celerity with which the promotion has rocketed to prominence, indoctrinating international sports fans into this “ultimate fighting,” is nothing short of amazing. Literally hundreds of fighters on roster, some of whom are legitimate sports superstars and pop culture icons. Live fight cards on cable TV are routine. A national and international expansion plan. Fat gates and fatter buy rates.

MMA fans never prayed for a $5 million gate like the Serra-St. Pierre rematch, or doing 1.05 million pay-per-view buys like the second go-around between Liddell and Ortiz. It was too unfathomable, too optimistic. It would have just been enough for longtime fans to not have to conceal their sport of preference in the public discourse, treating their MMA interest like some embarrassing, possibly repulsive deformity. A mention on ESPN without outright mockery might be nice. UFC cards in Canada, and the U.K., with the potential to head into Mexico, the Philippines and central Europe? Hell, just making it to back to pay-per-view was enough to pop the corks.

It hasn't all been rainbows. While I'm undoubtedly of a biased class, Zuffa's shutout of the online media, which kept the sport alive and kicking during its darkest days, in favor of clueless "mainstream" media was duplicitous and cowardly. The long-awaited infusion of real money and capital into MMA has resulted in disheartening politics, painful stand-offs and the marginalization of elite fighters. The UFC's position of power affords Zuffa to routinely revise and rewrite history in the largely ignorant media with no consequence. Fans still mourn the loss of Pride, whose existence at least for a moment represented some form of legitimizing competition from across the pond. The UFC's rise in popularity has tempted upstart after upstart to attempt to cash in and challenge their market share, yielding results ranging from disastrous to catastrophic.

But I remember waiting weeks for blocky, choppy mpegs of UFC events that some self-important git burned his watermark into. I remember two and three months between events. I remember never finding a solitary soul face-to-face with the faintest understanding that fighters did not in fact kill each other in cages. I am acutely aware and eternally indebted that I get to line my wallet by discussing this sport, a reality only possible through what the UFC has done these past few years. And quite frankly, when I see the pictures of Dana White and his Cheshire grin at that fateful Roppongi Hills press conference, I smile too. Why, I'm not sure, but I'm certain it's for the better.


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This Saturday is the UFC's 15th anniversary, and Zuffa has planned a suitable celebration. A Randy Couture-Brock Lesnar showdown is a striking historical synthesis, merging the mythos and revelation of the promotion's nascence with the modern sensibilities that inform UFC blockbusters. Can the jiu-jitsu guy beat the karate guy? Can experience and savvy beat monstrosity and natural ability? What's more effective, striking or grappling? What's more legitimate, the archetype or the prototype?

Whether you love or loathe the matchup, we tolerate it because it is one of the greatest heavyweights ever taking on the sort of physical beast we would expect to become one of the greatest heavyweights ever. We accept it because with the massive marketing push Zuffa has put behind it, it will sell and benefit all those involved. But the bout's essential question is of the authenticity that we craved in 1993, the demand to know who or what is the "realest." It is quaint, reliquian, like a scrapbook of the last decade and a half.

I'm not entirely sure how to summate this messy mish-mash of MMA memoirs and musings, and I apologize if they're not particularly useful. Nonetheless, I look forward to this Saturday. And all the other subsequent Saturdays. And the occasional Wednesday. And despite whatever social and hormonal strife the UFC faces as it progresses through puberty into young adulthood, I'll be there.

Somewhere, from the middle of a parking lot in Denver, there's a belch that echoes, and re-echoes. And for those of us who've heard it, it's sounds like "A screaming comes across the sky."