Defining the Greatness of MMA (An Attempt)
Every once in a while, when I get in a conversation about the sport, I get ballsy, and decide I’m going to throw a big claim out there: MMA is the world’s greatest sport.
As a guy who has a lot of hardcore baseball, basketball and football friends as fans, it’s not always the most popular statement, and I’m always asked to back it up. Usually, I’m pretty good at arguing the point, but it always comes back to “subjectivity.”
That’s fair.
Still, I think the argument as far as criterion goes is pretty strong, even given how new the sport is. At the beginning of November, I experienced one of the greatest weekends in my pretty long life as an MMA fan. Just referencing that weekend, it seems pretty easy to assess why MMA is an absolutely incredible sport, and why it will continue to grow.
Exhibit A: Brandon Cash vs. Shane del Rosario
I thought Shane del Rosario (9-0 MMA) was done, and so did everybody else. I kept the camera clicking, because I wanted to catch the stoppage, and I thought it was coming soon, as Brandon Cash (5-1 MMA) dropped bomb after bomb on the head of the southern Californian.
But there are more ways to lose in MMA than any other sport, and the lead doesn’t mean anything in combat sports that recognize the authority of the submission.
Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an omoplata used in MMA before (though it’s been one of my favorite submissions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ever since I started watching Nino Schembri). Even as a long time fan of the sport, I realize that (in theory) there are things I’ve never seen in MMA before, but being confronted with something I’ve never seen, something I never thought I’d see, is definitely a revelation.
After a BJJ fighter takes a beating for two-and-a-half minutes and catches a shoulder lock to take home the W, it codifies the MMA cliche: “anything can happen.” A fight between two guys most fans have never heard of has the potential to be a complete war, and it was.
One of the greatest parts of the sport is the complete unpredictability.
I like to make predictions, but it’s incredibly difficult in MMA, not just because there are so many ways a fighter can win, but because (on any given day) there are so many ways a fighter can lose. There are so many mistakes to make, and so many incredible ways to exploit those mistakes. Obviously, there are a huge number of possibilities in any sport, ways to come from behind and win, but in MMA, there’s no need to load up the bases before a grand slam, no need to regain possession of the football or even induce a fumble to make that game changing play.
There were nine second left in the first when Gonzaga put out CroCop.
The fight can end in seven seconds (as Todd Duffee fans know) or it can come to end with 10 seconds left in the round with a big head kick. MMA is a sport of “Don’t Blink” more than any other. Even in boxing, where a final round knockout is possible, there are moments when you know the fight can’t end (when the fighters clinch). In MMA, the possibility is always looming, and that’s part of the appeal.
Looking away means you might have to wait for the replay, and no other sport makes the threat of a standing-ovation worthy finish so possible, whether it’s Pride or ShoMMA, Emelianenko vs. Randleman or Cash vs. Del Rosario.
Exhibit B: Mamed Khalidov vs. Jorge Santiago
It might not be a bad idea to institute a rule that I should never pick against a fighter I’ve never heard of. Or maybe just never count out the underdog. I’m guilty of that crime on a fairly regular basis, and that’s why I missed, initially, Joe Lauzon’s knockout of Jens Pulver, and had to skip back to watch it again.
I’d never heard of Mamed Khalidov (20-3 MMA), and I wasn’t really familiar with anybody he’d fought. I thought that a top five middleweight like Jorge Santiago (21-8 MMA, 1-2 UFC, #5 IWMMAR) should have no trouble tearing through him. But this is MMA, and because there are (as already noted) so many ways to lose, so quickly, there has to be respect for the underdog. It’s a hard lesson to internalize, and I’ve learned it more than once. Usually, though, I just make a note-to-self about that particular underdog.
If the Devil Rays go up by a couple of points against the Yankees early, it’s not a big deal, but MMA doesn’t guarantee six or seven innings to catch up. A lead in the early going can lead to an early end, and even a quick come-from-behind, especially with a profoundly technical and clearly practiced display like the one put on by Khalidov, can mean the end of the night.
The parable of Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre I isn’t always enough to drill home the importance of respecting the underdog, but sometimes it’s about respecting the weaknesses of even the greatest, seemingly invincible fighters.
Respect for the name you haven’t heard is a weird thing to talk about, though it exists in boxing. Sure, people knew who “Buster” Douglas was, but nobody expected Douglas, who’d been stopped recently by Tony Tucker, to do anything to the then 37-0 monster that was Mike Tyson.
But the upsets in boxing are much less common than the complete shockers of MMA, purely because of that vast array of ways to get beat. Martin Kampmann can get stopped by Paul Daley, sure, and Paulo Thiago caught Josh Koscheck, but it’s not just about hands. Ryo Chonan put on one of the most shocking upsets in the history of the sport with his submission of Anderson Silva, especially given that he passed right by the takedown and caught the heelhook.
This is a sport where styles make fights, to be sure, and so does the implementation of those styles. The gameplan makes the sport like chess. Watching the sport progress, it’s clear that no one gets to the top without planning and execution. Nobody conquers the world by just throwing bombs, even if the biggest tool in the toolbox is the big bomb.
Exhibit C: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers
In departing, for a moment, from the fights themselves, there’s an element that (for some crowds, and when it comes to drawing crowds in general) is just as important. Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers featured some amazing fights between some interesting individuals, but the headlining fight held two of the most interesting characters in the sport.
Every sport has its enigmas and its babyfaces and its heels, but MMA seems to have the most colorful and versatile figures outside of the manufacturing plant that is the WWE (on a few occasions, it’s worth mentioning, the WWE has pulled some of the charisma from the world of MMA, it’s only recently been the case that the world of MMA has looked for athletic prowess in professional wrestlers).
The relationship between MMA and professional wrestling is a personal fascination of mine, but in order to avoid digression, I’ll avoid the connections between the two worlds (especially in Japan, where there’s a massive promotional and athletic overlap) and focus simply on other combat sports.
The giants of every generation cast long shadows.
In the case of Fedor Emelianenko (31-1-0-1 MMA, #1 IWMMAR), there is an enigma that has really fascinated the hardcore fans of MMA in a way that their attention is rarely captured. Sure, there are instances of great athletes who remain more or less out of the public eye, but the person of Fedor presents a point of fascination because his general reclusiveness, as well as the language and culture barrier, make wrapping our minds around him generally impossible. He seems almost like MMA’s twist on Greco-Roman wrestling legend Alexander Karelin, a frightening athlete with a mind that we do not yet have a complete understanding of. He’s the distant, imperial shadow cast over the pantheon of almost comic-book-level personalities.
In Brett Rogers (10-1 MMA, #6 IWMMAR), there is a human interest story of a former blue collar worker who has given himself over to fighting entirely. That, like the similar story of Shane Carwin, makes for a nice Captain America taste, were that particular image not already almost exclusively the property of Randy Couture.
The rest of the heavyweight division has as much the makings of a graphic novel as it does a human interest piece. Joe Rogan has said, repeatedly, that Brock Lesnar is (in spirit, at the very least) a comic book character, the build of Lou Ferriggno and the personality of Ted Nugent. But what about the legend that surrounds Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, that image that he had bestowed on him during his career in Pride as the unfinishable Brazilian submission machine, with the added story of his serious childhood injury.
I love personal narratives, and there are a thousand biographies to write in the world of heavyweight MMA alone: the former anti-terrorism officer Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic, who’s kicks constitute almost a video-game move; “The Smashing Machine” Mark Kerr, who’s history in wrestling and the sport as a whole are mindboggling; Jeff Monson, who’s politics and personal life have made him infamous; Andrei “The Pitbull Arlovski, who seems far removed from his early life as the kid who (he admits) used to get picked on.
The list goes on.
And that’s leaving alone the other divisions, with similar foreign enigmas (Anderson Silva), strangely spiritual warriors (Diego Sanchez), complex personalities (B.J. Penn), freakishly video-game friendly characters (Jose Aldo) and the pro-wrestling figures of the Japanese scene (Kazushi Sakuraba and Ikuhisa Minowa).
Anyone who, like me, enjoys the storylines that exist within the sport, gets an endless supply of strange character matchups (Penn vs. Sanchez) and charismatic rivalries (Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz). I’ve heard people say that MMA hasn’t had its charismatic Muhammad Ali yet. That’s true, and we probably never will.
Why?
Because there are so many colorful and transcendent personalities in the sport that a single poetic, witty champion wouldn’t mean the same thing it meant to the world of boxing, which was full of characters, but not at all to the same degree.
The world of MMA is a colorful place, and there are so many quirks that are worth discussing at length, but these are really the three that occurred to me as a pretty big deal over the weekend. Some of them (the first and second more than the third) border on cliche at this point, because they’re so commonly discussed, but the case studies definitely made for solid additions to MMA’s long history of come-from-behind victories and shocking upsets.