Issue 119

September 2014

NICK PEET Fighters Only Editor-in-Chief on whether MMA is becoming a young man’s game, and Chael Sonnen’s exit

A decade ago, life experience was fundamental to success inside the Octagon. Those at the top of MMA had miles on the clock, hearts like whales and chins carved of stone. A solid grappling base was essential, of course, but most of all it took guts and gusto to become a UFC champion.

Around 2004, the belts were being passed around between the likes of Randy Couture (then 41), Chuck Liddell (34), Murilo Bustamante (37) and Matt Hughes (30), taking the average age of the champions and contenders of that era to around 32 years and eight months.

Compare that with today’s current UFC roster of champions who, across the now eight male weight classes, average just 28 years and two months, and it’s evident mixed martial arts is increasingly becoming a young man’s sport. 

Of the current stable of champions, only heavyweight king Cain Velasquez is in his 31st year. While four of the formidable eight belt bearers are just 27 years old. And it’s a downward curve that looks destined to decrease even further.

Five years ago, in 2009, the average age of UFC champions was 30 years and eight months, meaning that if this trend of shaving off two years every five continues, then by 2019 the average age of a world champion inside the Octagon will be just 26. In short, the guys who will most likely close out this decade with UFC gold wrapped around their waists are still juniors in college.

And yet, when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. After all, thanks to the UFC’s lead, athletes can now realistically start building towards a lucrative career in mixed martial arts. 

Athletes like Jon Jones and Johny Hendricks have the blue chip sponsorship deals and media attention their kin from Fox Sports’ other more established sporting franchises readily enjoy.

Outstanding college athletes now view mixed martial arts as a professional career from their first day as a freshman, rather than seeing MMA as simply an avenue to continue competing in when they are no longer able to take part in their preferred sporting pursuit.

Ten years ago a gifted college athlete would see only football, basketball or baseball as realistic opportunities to make serious money in sports after school. But the UFC’s emergence as a truly global sporting tournament has changed all that. Today, top-level MMA at least is as attractive as any other sporting profession.

It’s natural athletes and not just hard men that are coming into mixed martial arts today. Teenagers with state wrestling, black-belt level jiu-jitsu and Golden Gloves boxing backgrounds are becoming less of a rarity and more the norm. The sport is evolving.

When Jon ‘Bones’ Jones first broke through into the big time he was viewed as an anomaly. The youngest UFC champion in history, his natural athleticism is matched only by his incredible skill-set.

But what is becoming increasingly evident is that the light heavyweight champion isn’t a one-off. He was simply the first. The rest are starting to follow.

MMA, thanks largely to the UFC’s mainstream appeal, has overtaken boxing as fight sports’ answer to a million-dollar career in professional sports. And with the first IMMAF World Amateur Championships having taken place in Las Vegas during International Fight Week, the long road to Olympic qualification is already underway.

Mixed martial arts is evolving faster than ever; nowhere more so than with the athletes stepping inside the cage.

SAD SONNEN EXIT NECESSARY

Chael Sonnen’s exit from the sport, both as an athlete and as a pundit, will leave a hole in the hearts and minds of fans the world over. But, as the Bible states: you reap what you sow.

‘The West Linn Lip’ was one of the best things about UFC broadcasts. His quick wit and rehearsed lyrics provided laugh-out-loud moments against the perfect foil that was his genuine insight into a fighter’s mind-set. But ultimately his mouth dug him a hole he couldn’t climb out of with one untruth too many.

Failing back-to-back drug tests – for differing substances – ultimately gave Fox Sports and UFC execs nowhere left to go. Evidently, Sonnen could see the writing on the wall, announcing his retirement from the sport after the first failed test result was announced.

And he likely thought walking away from competition would be enough to salvage his exciting TV career. But what appeared to be his destined rise to lead anchor of Fox’s UFC Tonight show was taken away too as his position became untenable.