Issue 131
August 2015
Fighters Only editor Nick Peet considers the implications of the UFC’s latest innovations.
While comprehensive details of the UFC’s attempts to drive drug cheats out of the sport captured most of the headlines in June – and rightly so – I was equally as fascinated by the organization’s plans for the new and tentatively titled ‘UFC Lab’ planned for Las Vegas, and the implications it may have on the future of the sport.
As well as controlling the action inside the Octagon, the TV production, increasingly, the media and all the sponsorships associated with the brand, the UFC’s plans to operate a master training facility of its own suggests it also wants to be able to control and monitor the training and rehabilitation of its athletes too.
And so it begs the question: where is all this leading? Is the UFC indeed working towards a time when, just like the NFL blueprint it continues so vigorously to try to reproduce, all fighters on the roster will be paid a monthly salary topped up by bonuses surrounding fights? After all, that direction is certainly starting to make most sense.
The UFC’s chief operating officer, Lawrence Epstein, confirmed the new facility – part of the company’s new office expansion in Nevada – will focus on athlete training best practices, maintenance and physical rehabilitation.
He said: “We’re building what we call, tentatively, the ‘UFC Lab’. That facility is going to be a state-of-the-art facility where all of our athletes can not only come work out, using cutting-edge training techniques and, of course, equipment, but they can also rehab at this facility if they’re injured.”
According to Epstein, the larger aim is to treat existing injuries, and also reduce incidences through education and training guidance. That suggests they want their athletes to be taught how to train, fuel and prepare for fights in a specific way.
At the time of the press event on June 3rd, the UFC had no other information to release on the matter, but it certainly left me with plenty of questions and suggests that being part of the UFC roster in the future may include much more than a couple of calls to arms each year from matchmakers Joe Silva or Sean Shelby.
As part of the research into the new ‘UFC Lab’, Epstein and others visited British soccer club Manchester City to take in its brand-new facility – likely at the behest of Garry Cook, the UFC’s chief global brand officer who is the former chief exec of the two-time English Premier League champions.
The acclaimed City Football Academy reportedly cost £200 million ($309m) and was opened last year to the envy of world soccer. As well as countless pitches, swimming pools and gyms, it’s got cryotherapy and ultrasound rooms as well as hotel-style suites for players to stay in before matches.
Of course, while the Manchester club’s new center is uniquely state-of-the-art among soccer clubs, NFL teams across the nation also have dedicated training campus’ featuring similar equipment and facilities. But where both the soccer and football worlds differ from MMA is in that the players are signed to big-salary contracts with performance bonuses attached.
Is the UFC actually going to take the next step and offer their 600+ roster of athletes monthly salaries too, in a bold bid to complete their lofty ambitions and fully transition from fight promotions’ traditional have-gloves-will-travel mindset into being the first truly global fight sports league?
USADA NO DOPES
By appointing USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) as an independent arbitrator of its new year-round battle against drug cheats, the UFC may just be correct when it stated it now has ‘the best anti-doping program in all of professional sports.’
By also stating that first-time PED (performance enhancing drug) offenders may be punished with four-year suspensions too, they’ve done all they can to scare the present roster into either getting or staying clean, or run the risk of flushing their careers down the toilet.
Reportedly, USADA will conduct 2,750 random drug tests per year, which breaks down to approximately five-and-a-half tests per athlete presently on the roster. And with the UFC having zero involvement in the testing process, there should be zero preferential treatment too.
The message is clear. If you’re using PEDs in the UFC you’re going to get caught and pay a very stiff, likely career-ending penalty. We may lose some main events, we may even lose champions, but the expansion of MMA worldwide relies on a clean sport and for that, fans across the planet should be delighted.
