MMA Year In Review: 2016 - The Year MMA Broke
2016 was the biggest year for the sport of MMA in recent memory, with mixed martial arts on the precipice of something much bigger.
If you were a kid in the 90s, you might remember 1991: The Year Punk Broke, the seminal travelogue featuring Sonic Youth, The Ramones, Babes in Toyland, Dinosaur Jr., and this little up-and-coming band named Nirvana. Punk and alternative rock were on the verge of breaking into the mainstream, and director Dave Markey happened to capture some of this ascension at just the right time.
If you were going to make an MMA version, it might be 2016: The Year MMA Broke. Or perhaps The Year the UFC Broke, but let’s not pretend the entire sport revolves around a single promotion. It doesn’t, and the UFC’s competitors matter more than ever before — but we’ll get to that later.
For now, let’s reflect on what happened in 2016 that made it such a milestone year in the sport.
First up, consider that MMA has had watershed moments before. UFC 1, the purchase of a failing promotion by Zuffa, Kimbo fighting on network television, Brock Lesnar crossing over from the world of pro wrestling. The original Ultimate Fighter. The debut of women in the UFC.
Yet it’s hard to pick out any one year as influential on the sport as a whole as 2016.
It’s the year that Ronda Rousey, for a time the biggest star in a promotion once closed to women, vanished, only to return at year’s end (the results of that comeback won’t be known for a few more days). The year Conor McGregor officially became the sport’s biggest star. Not of the year. Not currently. Ever.
Love him or hate him, when you have three PPVs in a single year the break a million buys and are the first fighter to hold UFC titles in two weight classes simultaneously, you’re the biggest star. There’s no other way to look at it. Title defenses are important, but they don’t change the fact that when the man fights, everyone watches.
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It’s the year that saw USADA really take off and begin catching those that would try to cheat the system (and just plain cheat). The year that free agency became a truly viable option again, with fighters like Rory MacDonald and Benson Henderson jumping ship to Bellator MMA. And the year the depressing reality of the Reebok deal really set in.
Without question, some of these milestones were set up in years previous. USADA isn’t new. Reebok has been around for a while. When Strikeforce was bought and absorbed by the UFC proper, Bellator was waiting in the wings. Remember their play for Gilbert Melendez in 2014? They made their mark in 2015 as well, but between Henderson, Mitrione, MacDonald, Sonnen, and Emelianenko — this has been their best year yet.
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Yet the obvious watershed moment in a watershed year was the sale of the UFC to WME-IMG. Zuffa, who brought the promotion back from the edge of bankruptcy, cashed out at the perfect time. Maybe they saw the writing on the wall. Maybe they had an inkling that something like the MMA Athlete’s Association was coming. Perhaps Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta just have a knack for timing. Whatever the reason, they sold just as fighters were waking up.
Waking up, and discovering their worth.
Again, McGregor, who was already knocking on the glass ceiling of fighter pay, should get some credit for that. He immediately recognized his worth in a sport where fighters all too often fight for honor over compensation. Yet the sale itself is what really forced fighters to wake up and take notice of their worth.
After all, four billion is an awfully big number. When the company you work for sells for that much, and you’re still putting your health on the line for what amounts to peanuts, it’s hard not to take notice.
If 2016 is remembered for anything, it will be that. Not just the sale, but what the sale meant: welcome to the big time of professional sports. Whether WME-IMG is able to successfully take the sport to the next level or not, right now, the UFC is on the brink of something huge. It’s mainstream. No longer a niche sport that forces you to defend your interest in it. Far, far removed from the human cockfighting days.
There will be growing pains, but that’s not always a bad thing. Some fighters may jump ship between promotions, or even sports. Yet competition is generally a good thing. Let’s not forget that the UFC’s biggest competitor in Asia, ONE Championship, is itself on the way to a billion plus valuation. As a whole, this is a sport with more money on the line than ever before.
If the FOX rebroadcast of UFC 206 is any indicator (overnight ratings show upwards of 4.5 million viewers), then MMA is near the break. Big time. For all of the crap 2016 brought us, it did give us that.
For MMA fans, maybe that’s the best gift of the year. That, and Cub Swanson vs. Doo Ho Choi being rebroadcast for free.