Over the past 18 years, there has been an uprising in the world of combat sports. The organization known as the UFC has grown into the largest MMA promotion company worldwide. In 1993, the organization was nothing more than what appeared to be a traveling circus of lethal fighters. Unable to hold events in most states of the USA and countries around the world, no one expected the UFC to have a long lifeline. Now nearly two decades later, it has grown into a massive phenomenon, almost surpassing the fading boxing world. Its all a far cry from the beginning. The promotion started by holding fight events in small arenas and then distributing the footage on VHS. This may have been lucrative to begin with, but after a short while, the promoters started to realize that it could not continue to sustain this success without developing the format. In 2001 the owners at the time were bought out by two executives, brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta. They placed boxing promoter Dana White in charge of the franchise as President.
In the last ten years the sport has grown from obscurity to become some of the most watched sporting events in the world. Since the acquisition of the UFC, Dana White and the Fertitta Bros have monopolized the MMA world. The past ten years have seen them buying out most rival firms. The most successful of these being the Pride FC franchise operating in Japan. They saw this as the biggest threat to the success of the UFC and did exactly what any other profitable organization would do, performed a take over. This angered most fight fans, as when this occurred, the UFC took most of the fighters on the Pride roster and left them without any fight contracts for some time. This monopoly on MMA has continued over the past few years with take overs of most major outfits. The most recent being the acquisition of the Strikeforce brand. This could lead to problems for certain fighters, a number of which have been banned from appearing in the UFC. These fighters subsequently joined St rikeforce. Now with the take over complete, no one is sure what will happen to these fighters.
One of the main examples would be the rising British star Paul Daley. He was handed a lifetime ban in May 2010, by the UFC for what could only be described as a cheap shot, punching Josh Koschek after the bell had sounded for the end of the 3rd and final round. This left Daley without much options for future fights. Having fought in several promotions around the world, Strikeforce then announced that Daley would fight the current Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz on the 9th April 2011. The UFC purchased Strikeforce only after this fight had been announced. So what happens if Daley wins? What happens if he keeps winning? It is believed that Strikeforce is to continue running as its own entity with CEO Scott Coker in charge. This is said to be because there is still current contracts that need to be honored.
So, for speculation sake, what happens if Paul Daley wins the Championship? When the current contracts have ended for Strikeforce, what happens to their current champions? Im sure they will be offered some sort of fast track to the title shot, but what about Daley? Will he fight in the UFC again? Who knows, but one thing we do know is that the UFC will continue to dominate this market and buy out anyone who tries to rival their organization. Does this mean that the UFC will have the biggest and best fights with the most interesting fighters present? I don't believe so. We may see some entertaining fights, but I don't think that the UFC can legitimately say they have the World Champions if they don't actually allow all the best fighters in the world to compete. Im not saying I want to see Paul Daley given another shot, but the UFC cannot go on claiming to have the real champions when fighters such as him and Fedor Emelianenko are not able to compete for their place amongst the rankings. Perhaps the way to go about this is not to offer a contract binding the fighters to a specific promotion but instead offer them open contracts for the fighters to decide where they will get the best deal. This way, we the fans, can still watch the best fights only this way the fighters will also get a better deal for themselves.
This could never happen though as it seems to go against everything the UFC have worked towards, lining up a roster full of talented fighters unable to work within any other organizations, leaving them to wait for the UFC to offer the opportunity to fight again. This needs to stop now so that the fans can have an unbiased view of the sport in general. Until then we just have to make do with what we currently receive.
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