Issue 126

March 2015

In February 2015, Fighters Only celebrated its 10-year anniversary. To commemorate, we looked back through our archives at some of the most seminal stories from the last decade of mixed martial arts history.

UFC goes global (2007-present)

Prior to the big return to Britain with UFC 70 in Manchester, England (the promotion’s 89th event in total), the ‘U’ in UFC may as well have stood for ‘United States’. From November 1993 to April 2007, just six events were held outside mainland USA – four in Japan and one each in Puerto Rico, Brazil and the UK. That’s a measly 7.95%. But the hugely successful Manchester show ushered in a new, far more globalized era.  

From then until the end of 2014, a hefty 73 of 216 UFC shows have been staged outside the US. The Octagon has traveled to Brazil (18 times), Canada (16), the UK (14), Australia (six), Germany, Japan, Sweden, Macau (three each), Ireland, the UAE (both twice), Singapore, New Zealand and Mexico. More than one third of the promotion’s events have been held in other countries, spreading the gospel of MMA and encouraging the sport’s worldwide growth like no other organization.

Death of Evan Tanner (2008)

One of the sport’s most compelling and tragic personal stories, ended with Evan Tanner’s untimely, lonely death in the wilderness in early September 2008. The Fighters Only obituary noted he was “an unusual, often reluctant fighter. An adventurer with a phenomenal appetite for books who constantly moved from city to city and one job to another, he never fully dedicated himself to the sport he was so good at and his adult life was marked by ongoing battles with depression and heavy drinking.” 

Fighting professionally for 12 years from 1997 to 2008, Tanner initially taught himself submissions from manuals and instructional videos and in 2005, became the UFC middleweight champion. Three months after his last UFC fight, he went camping and, after running out of water and motorbike fuel, died from heat exposure. He was 37.

‘The Spider’ era (2005-13)

No fighter dominated the last decade the way record-smashing UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva did. After making a name for himself in Pride and helping put London-based Cage Rage on the international map, he finally made his long-awaited UFC debut in June 2006. He emphatically won the belt from Rich Franklin just four months later. ‘The Spider’ went on to hold it for an incredible 2,457 days, successfully defending it 10 times until his stunning July 2013 loss to Chris Weidman. Finally caught out as he taunted his opponent – something he’d done so many times before – the clowning-about Brazilian legend was flattened by the challenger in a shocking upset. Five months later in their rematch, Silva’s leg grotesquely snapped as Weidman checked a leg kick. The highest-profile injury of its kind inside the Octagon might have ended the 38-year-old’s career, but at the time of writing he was just days away from one of the greatest and most unlikely comebacks to the cage.

UFC 100 destroys the record books (2009)

The UFC had already broken the magical million mark for pay-per-view buys at the end of 2006 as fans clamored to see Chuck Liddell and former friend Tito Ortiz reignite their bitter feud. But UFC 100 was even bigger. Pulling in a reported 1.6 million buys, it remains by far the most-purchased UFC pay-per-view of all time. It’s a record that looks like it will stand for some years to come. A combination of factors made it a huge financial winner. There was huge hype about it being the 100th numbered show, Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson settled their differences in a grudge match and the two title fights featured two of the sport’s biggest ever box-office attractions: heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar (who gave Frank Mir a fearsome thumping) and welterweight king Georges St Pierre (who outclassed Thiago Alves). It was a winner in entertainment terms too.

The Ultimate Fighter (2005 onwards)

Swimming in red ink and unable to secure a TV deal for regular live fights, the UFC pinned its hopes for a prosperous future on a reality show named The Ultimate Fighter. It made stars of Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez; and exposed MMA to a new audience, particularly the thrilling finale fight between Griffin and Bonnar, to play an absolutely vital role in the promotion’s – and the sport’s – surge towards the mainstream.

It also greatly increased the profile and marketability of coaches from Randy Couture to Ronda Rousey over the years, as well as giving superstar fighters like Michael Bisping and Rashad Evans vital audience exposure, even before they made their Octagon debuts.  

There were some incredible moments along the way too – Gabe Ruediger’s weight-cutting nightmare, Matt Serra and Matt Hughes’ bitter bowling contest, some great fights inside the cage and explosive arguments outside it. After 27 seasons including international expansions and an all-live edition, TUF has a had an up-and-down history, but without it the sport simply wouldn’t be where it is today.

The fall of Fedor (2010-11)

Clearly the best heavyweight in MMA history as he entered 2010, Fedor Emelianenko was the last Pride heavyweight champion and had spent years leaving a trail of destruction in his impassive wake. With the end of the beloved Japanese organization, ‘The Last Emperor’ headed to US promotions, – first Affliction, then Strikeforce – to collect some more heads.  

But after three straight destructive showings on American soil, the seemingly impossible, but actually inevitable happened. Everyone loses sooner or later. The cracks had started to appear for some time and he was first tapped by a Fabricio Werdum triangle choke, then hammered by Antonio Silva and finally knocked out by Dan Henderson.  

In three fights over 13 months, the alluring myth of the unbeatable Russian cyborg was thoroughly dismantled.

PEDs and TRT (2007 onwards)

It should surprise no-one that performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) like steroids are a problem in MMA. As the sport grew and came under mainstream scrutiny, drug testing – as flawed as it is – was both inevitable and welcome. There were high-profile test failures previously, but 2007 was a watershed year for urine tests gone wrong.  

Phil Baroni, Dennis Hallman and UFC legend Royce Gracie all failed. In July, both UFC lightweight title fight participants were busted – champion Sean Sherk and challenger Hermes Franca – for the first, and so far, only time in history. 

By the end of the year, more than a dozen fighters had been caught out. Plenty more have since failed (the likes of Antonio Silva, Chris Leben and Josh Barnett) or fled (Wanderlei Silva). The testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) loophole, now thankfully closed, also saw a suspiciously high number of professional athletes recieving artificial help that was ordinarily prescribed for men in their 50s and 60s.

GSP: Canada’s superstar uber-athlete (2006-13)

Responsible for drawing the biggest ever North American MMA crowd – 55,724 people at the Rogers Centre in Toronto for UFC 129 – Georges St Pierre is a genuine national hero. He was named Rogers Sportsnet Canadian Athlete of the Year from 2008 to 2010 and was the sport’s dominant welterweight for most of the last ten years.

 GSP looked unstoppable when he captured the title from Matt Hughes in 2006. Though he faltered and was KO’ed by Matt Serra for a truly staggering upset in his first defense, he regained the title and amassed one of the most impressive win streaks ever – 12 straight victories over the very best fighters in the 170lb division.  

After his controversial November 2013 split-decision win over Johny Hendricks, the sport’s most marketable man vacated the title and walked away – burnt out, tired of the immense pressure and unhappy with the sport’s drug-testing regime. His much-talked-about return is eagerly awaited by a nation – and millions more.

The rise of British MMA (2005)

Mixed martial arts had already existed in Britain for a few years. Its two most well-known promotions – Cage Rage and Cage Warriors – held their first events in 2002. But two events in the space of a week in late 2005 showed how far they had come and gave a glimpse of the impact Britain would have on the global scene.  

Cage Warriors’ November 26th event featured homegrown future superstars Michael Bisping and Dan Hardy as well as up-and-coming international talent like Martin Kampmann and Antonio Silva. A week later, Cage Rage’s event in London was headlined by Anderson Silva. International names Vitor Belfort, Matt Lindland and JZ Cavalcante also fought, as did three of Pride’s Japanese regulars.  

Though Cage Rage helped to make the careers of some important British talent like Brad Pickett and Paul Daley, it faded away in 2008. Cage Warriors – which counts Conor McGregor among its recent champions – is still a highly-regarded active organization, promoting high-quality, well-matched events in the UK and Ireland, mainland Europe and the Middle East.

The Affliction experiment (2008-09)

The runaway success of the UFC ensured many wealthy people would develop a burning desire to run MMA promotions. Some, like the infamously, hilariously inept YAMMA or the wildly overambitious revival of the WFA which ran a single show and disappeared. Others lasted longer. The team-based IFL ran 22 events from 2006-2008. EliteXC spent big, but lasted less than two years and collapsed spectacularly in late 2008 amidst a sea of Kimbo Slice controversy. But few rose and fell in such spectacular style as the promotional arm of a clothing manufacturer led by ‘T-shirt Guy’ Tom Atencio. 

By the end of Affliction’s first show, which was headlined by Fedor Emelianenko’s massacre of former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia, it looked like genuine competition for the UFC. It pulled a good crowd and did well on pay-per-view, but outrageously high purses were paid that couldn’t possibly be sustained. Everything fell apart just days before their third event as headliner Josh Barnett (set to face Fedor) flunked a pre-fight drug test. The show was scrapped and Affliction quickly went back to making clothes and sponsoring fighters.

The return of Randy Couture (2005-07)

In 2003, when Randy Couture won his first UFC light heavyweight championship, he was already considered an old man for MMA. Almost 14 years later, Couture finally retired for good aged 48. It wasn’t the first time though. After twice losing title fights to Chuck Liddell in 2005 and early 2006, he hung up the gloves as a four-time champion in two different weight classes with his status assured as a legend of the sport.  

But 13 months later, he was back in the Octagon, aged 43, flooring UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in the opening seconds. He thoroughly dominated the much bigger man for five rounds to reclaim the title to a rapturous response from a raucous sold-out crowd in Columbus, Ohio.  

It’s one of the most famous UFC fights of all time, Couture followed it up a few months later with a successful defense of the championship, battling through a broken forearm to batter Gabriel Gonzaga. Taken together, those two performances are among the most incredible by any fighter in UFC history. After a messy contract dispute, Couture eventually returned to UFC over a year later and lost his title to Brock Lesnar.

The end of Pride FC (2007)

Tabloid newspaper revelations about deep Yakuza (Japanese organized crime) involvement in the affairs of parent company Dream Stage Entertainment led to the death of one of the sport’s most beloved promotions. Months of media scrutiny forced broadcast partners Fuji TV to drop the promotion like a particularly dirty and shameful habit, cutting off the cash that made Pride’s big events so spectacular.  

The damage done to the Japanese scene as a whole was huge and no other Eastern organization has come anywhere close to Pride’s success. While its 10-year run as Japan’s – and for much of the time the world’s – biggest MMA company has been endlessly romanticized since (dodgy officiating, promotional bias and gross mismatches featured regularly), for sheer entertainment value and historical importance, Pride remains, years later, the second most significant promotion the sport has ever seen.  

UFC’s Strikeforce buyout (2011)

Of all the people who jumped into the North American MMA business after the 2005 TUF boom, San Jose-based promoter Scott Coker – now running the show for Viacom-owned Bellator MMA – was by far the most successful. It probably helped that he’d promoted martial arts events since 1985 and by 2006, with MMA fully legalized in California, San Jose fans came out in droves to see the action move from a ring to a cage. 

Operating almost entirely in California for the first few years, Strikeforce was a hugely successful, major regional promotion. A regular slot on Showtime and network TV specials on CBS following EliteXC’s messy demise put it in direct competition with the UFC. 

However, costs and salaries mounted – Fedor certainly didn’t come cheap – and with financial backers unwilling to carry on, Coker’s baby was sold to the only credible bidder – the UFC. After running Strikeforce as a separate brand until 2013 to fulfill existing TV contracts, the best fighters including Ronda Rousey, Gilbert Melendez and Daniel Cormier eventually moved to UFC.

Untouchable to title contender (2010-14)

No fighter in the last decade has taken as unlikely a path to stardom and success as Mark Hunt. Between July 2006 and May 2009 ‘The Super Samoan’ lost five straight fights in Japan, all in the first round. Regardless of his big punching style, the UFC had no intention of employing him, despite inheriting his contract when they bought Pride. Hunt threatened legal action and, aged 36, finally made it into the Octagon, where he lost quickly and easily to MMA footnote Sean McCorkle.  

But he then won four of his next five fights – three by KO – and began gathering a real cult following. He ended 2013 with an unforgettable five-round war with Antonio Silva, then knocked out iron-chinned Roy Nelson in a Godzilla-esque confrontation back in Japan.  

In November 2014, Hunt stepped in on little more than three weeks’ notice to save the UFC’s debut show in Mexico and face Fabricio Werdum for the interim title. Even in defeat, Hunt cemented his status as a genuine fan favorite who punched his way from untouchable washout to title challenger.

Tale of two women: Gina and Ronda (2007-09 & 2012-14)

How many people have truly revolutionized fighting? Royce Gracie did it in 1993 and other MMA legends made major contributions up to the present day through innovative technique. The last decade saw Gina Carano and Ronda Rousey open the sport up to millions of women – an audience and fighter base not traditionally associated with caged combat. Women’s MMA had existed since the 1990s, but EliteXC’s decision to feature Carano on their much-hyped Showtime debut was a great leap forward. 

Carano and Julie Kedzie – now matchmaker for all-female Invicta FC – tore the house down. Two-and-a-half years later, in August 2009, Carano’s fight with Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos became the first female fight to headline a major MMA show. 

Rousey’s star power saw her go even further. She headlined a pair of UFC-owned Strikeforce events and, after single-handedly changing Dana White’s mind about women’s MMA, the historic first-ever women’s fight in the Octagon at UFC 157.  

Gina got women’s MMA onto major national television. Ronda got women into the UFC. Both are superstars who changed perceptions of who can and can’t compete in MMA, inspiring a generation of women to take up the sport.