The Bottom Line: An Outlaw Sport Once Again

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The ordering process for Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-views has changed: UFC 249 is only available on ESPN+ in the U.S.

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The UFC 249 card that will apparently take place in less than two weeks should in some senses provide a surreal atmosphere. While some of the fights were known to be targeted for this event well in advance, others involving major talent were rearranged and some of those were likely only finalized in recent days. The logistics of getting all of that talent to the same location will be quite the challenge amidst quarantines and stay-at-home orders; one would think there’s a good chance that at least some of the fights will fall through. Then there is the matter of where the event will take place, a detail that has yet to be confirmed and might remain undisclosed to the public.

How this is perceived in the future is likely to be shaped by outside factors. If with time other sports leagues return in front of empty arenas and fans grow to appreciate their presence amidst a prolonged public health crisis and economic collapse, the Ultimate Fighting Championship isn’t likely to be judged harshly for being one of the first to move to that format. If on the other hand other sports leagues largely remain closed while the UFC regularly runs events, condemnation is likely to extend past the MMA media into the mainstream.

All of that is strange given how MMA has become just another mainstream professional sport, yet for longtime MMA fans there’s an interesting symmetry to it all. It’s not simply that what’s going on now resembles the past history of MMA; this is in fact almost exactly what UFC has gone through in the past and for pretty much the same reason of health. The health concern then was that MMA was too intrinsically dangerous to sanction, and the health concern now is that running fights even in an empty arena is too inherently risky in the spread of COVID-19. The UFC’s critics today have a similar zeal to the UFC’s critics then, only then the fiercest critics were outside of MMA and the fiercest critics now are inside.

Twenty-three years before UFC 249 had to be moved away from New York on short notice, the same fate befell UFC 12. The UFC had an event scheduled for Niagara Falls when criticism framing the sport as barbaric was mounting. New York wasn’t able to pass a law in time to ban the sport before UFC 12, so the New York State Athletic Commission quickly threw together a new rule book for the UFC. That rule book was full of substantial changes, including arbitrary ones—such as forcing the Octagon to be 25 percent larger for no apparent reason—specifically designed to prevent UFC 12 from taking place. It was a dubious move from a constitutional standpoint, but when a district court judge upheld the rule book, the UFC had no choice but to move the event on 24 hours’ notice.

That was the beginning of the dark era of the UFC. Fewer locales allowed the promotion to run, and the UFC lost pay-per-view clearances over time. Eventually, the company would be consigned to satellite pay-per-view and a few states and foreign jurisdictions. The irony of where we find ourselves now is that the grand narrative of the modern UFC was of Dana White and Zuffa running towards regulation while the previous owners ran away from it. With White now announcing his intention to purchase a private island and fly in fighters on a private jet, the sport is firmly back to actively avoiding regulatory obstacles.

Back then, the UFC rationalized moving to unregulated areas with the justification that the sport was not as dangerous and barbarous as it was made out to be. Supporters of the sport lambasted its critics for often being ignorant about what it was, all while extolling its positive traits. Newer fans are unfamiliar with this battle, but for many of us, it was not so long ago that we had to explain why MMA wasn’t a fundamentally immoral venture. The fighters wanted to participate and the fans wanted to watch, so the health risks were argued to be acceptable.

MMA is unquestionably a dangerous sport, and it remains to be seen how it will be perceived in 500 years as we learn more about the human brain. Either way, the battle in the short-term was unquestionably won. The forces calling for MMA to be banned on safety grounds slowly retreated and now have thrown in the towel altogether. What was once a majority view in this country—that MMA should not be allowed—is now no longer an argument you hear in pretty much any setting.

However, the UFC is now back to flaunting public health arguments. Clearly, the company feels that the public health risks in putting on empty-crowd events can be sufficiently mitigated by testing and monitoring those brought in to those events. Time will tell how successful it will be in running a regular schedule and how that decision will be judged. One thing is for sure: MMA, at least for now, is back to being an outlaw sport.

Todd Martin has written about mixed martial arts since 2002 for a variety of outlets, including CBSSports.com, SI.com, ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, MMApayout.com, Fight Magazine and Fighting Spirit Magazine. He has appeared on a number of radio stations, including ESPN affiliates in New York and Washington, D.C., and HDNet’s “Inside MMA” television show. In addition to his work at Sherdog.com, he does a weekly podcast with Wade Keller at PWTorch.com and blogs regularly at LaTimes.com. Todd received his BA from Vassar College in 2003 and JD from UCLA School of Law in 2007 and is a licensed attorney. He has covered UFC, Pride, Bellator, Affliction, IFL, WFA, Strikeforce, WEC and K-1 live events. He believes deeply in the power of MMA to heal the world and bring happiness to all of its people.

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