Like most people who have spent entirely too much time engrossed in a hobby, pastime, or entertainment activity I get a little upset when I feel like the object of my interest is misunderstood or misrepresented. It is no easier to misunderstand MMA than through a fighter shrouded in mystery like Fedor Emelianenko. The recent narrative seems simple enough: Fedor was the greatest Heavyweight in the world yet he was largely inaccessible to casual fans because he did not fight under the UFC banner. Mainstream sports fans that found themselves only marginally interested in MMA even seemed to accept this all as fact. Why wouldn’t they? Fedor fit the bill perfectly, an unassuming, quiet, gentle looking Russian with more highlight videos on youtube than Antoine Dobson (well maybe not). Emelianenko’s ongoing and offgoing negotiations with the UFC have been the most important long-term story in the sport for over two years now. It is these negotiations along with the rise of Strikeforce and the now defunct Affliction MMA promotion, who brought The Last Emperor to the United States that put Fedor on the American sports fan’s radar. Most fans had their “side” in the story and while many have dropped the discussion all together, now is the time to reexamine where we once stood on Fedor and his relationship, or lack there of with the UFC.
This is a relationship that has always been complex but one that most reasonable fans are no more equipped to decipher than casual followers of the sport. Keyboard warriors love hyperbole so don’t expect to look far for strong opinions on the topic but this says little about how the MMA universe as a whole actually understands the affairs. This is not the place to hash out the differences, which are readily available with a little research. This is however the place to bring up how different things would be if the Fedor had landed with the UFC and what we can discern about the sport from that. At issue are three distinctions, each with its own story to tell about the current state of MMA. 1) Fedor’s losses would be seen as indication of inherent inferiority of his status as a non-UFC fighter throughout his career. 2) Fedor would likely not have found himself caught the in “will he fight or wont he” struggle for the 72 hours or so following his fight. 3) Fedor’s losses would have contributed more significantly to the sport as a whole and particularly to the individual careers of those who beat him
MMA is currently divided into two very large, distinct camps: The UFC and the non-UFC. Strikeforce represents the most significant presence in the latter but if the UFC is the Superbowl Champions every year, Strikeforce is still missing the playoffs. This is the unfortunate reality of the matter, the unfortunate reality that corners Fedor into a camp (the non-UFCers) that is constantly struggling to prove its legitimacy. As it stands now Fedor’s losses are seen as indicative of a sharp decline in his career because they exist in a consistent non-UFC universe. For the most part Affliction, Dream, Pride, Strikeforce, Elite XC and any other relatively visible promotion you can think of are conceptualized the same way. They are as good as the fighters they can muster up for a card at any given time. When they had Fedor they were at their best but their best has never been as good as the UFC, even the UFC average. Obviously highly dedicated fans of MMA understand there is a great deal of intricacy being left out here and each promotion has its own set of qualities that distinguish it from the others. However, even these same fans tend to use the same discourse when it comes to comparing any organization and its fighters to the big one. When a fighter like Gibert Melendez finds success more often than not praise comes for them with the caveat that it would be nice to see him tested against the top lightweights in the world. While Fedor transcended that to a degree, the UFC Bias returned as one negotiation after another fell through between the two parties. It is this partition that would have cast a longer shadow over Fedor’s career had he gone to the UFC and lost. His move would have been seen as a step up in competition and if he failed it would have been seen as an inability to compete at that level. That is not to say that Fedor’s legacy would have been dismissed but the justification narrative for his fall would have extended to his career outside the UFC as a whole. For Fedor, his decline in the status quo is sharper, but the memory of his glory days is well fortified. What we take from this is the unquestioned and likely justified UFC bias within the MMA culture. While the opinion is not always voiced overtly, fighters outside the UFC must work substantially harder and find more success than those in the UFC if they want to be considered at the top of their divisions.
The UFC’s popularity and power in the MMA market exists for a reason. While other American promotions have built themselves on the backs of particular fighters and fallen as those fighters fell, the UFC has built a brand. No one fighter is bigger than the brand. Brock Lesnar may be the biggest draw in the sport but if he gets injured before a fight, the card goes on and aside from a few griping fans, everyone gets over it fairly quickly. When Josh Barnett could not fight for Affliction and the main event was off, the company folded. When Kimbo Slice was exposed as a hack in the cage, Elite XC folded. Strikeforce is infinitely more equipped to deal with losing their biggest draw than either of those companies but the retirement of Fedor could still prove to be a lethal blow. Talks have since cooled but Strikeforce and M-1 spun there way through Fedor’s hints of retirement masterfully if not with a dash of panic. They made it clear in no certain terms that Fedor was under contract and would be expected to fulfill that contract. I do not think this would have been the case with the UFC. Fedor’s appeal to the casual MMA fan is grossly overrated. Most hardcore MMA fans are not that interested in seeing uninspired legends take loss after loss at the end of their career. If Fedor wanted to bow out gracefully I suspect the UFC would have let him, even facilitated the move. Not because they are such great lovers of humanity but because they do not need Fedor to survive. The move would costs them almost nothing as they would have made their return on Fedor with one or two fights. It would however come with a significant public image boost for both the company and the sport. MMA gets to see perhaps its greatest and most mysterious legend retire with some degree of dignity and status in tact while the UFC lets Fedor retire under its banner. This is a clear indication that Zuffa’s strangle hold on the business is not going anywhere fast. Dana White and company don’t need a single athlete to make their company work. Let’s face it there is something unsettling about feeling like a man might be forced to fight in a cage because of a contract. The UFC has afforded itself the opportunity to avoid being put in that position and for the most part they have. Their policy of brand over fighter might has been one of the stumbling blocks in getting a deal done with Emelianenko in the first place but it is what I think would have avoided an uncomfortable situation following The Last Emperor’s second loss.
There is a concept in professional wrestling of “putting someone over.” This refers to when someone loses a match so that his or her opponent will gain popularity. In theory wrestling is fundamentally based on a balance of wrestlers putting one another over so that everyone can maximize their popularity without destroying the credibility of everyone else. Wrestling is scripted so who puts whom over is obviously based on conscious decision making. For MMA there is no script but the concept of being put over still applies. Jon Jones gained popularity when he beat Ryan Bader. Matt Serra’s notoriety took flight when he KOed GSP. The more popular the loser in a match the more momentum is gained by the winner. Similarly the bigger the stage the more impact the victory has on the winner career. Fabricio Werdum and Antonio Silva got over on Fedor Emelianenko but ask casual fans who they are and your response rate will only be slightly higher than they would have been before their monumental wins. Fedor’s star power is still relatively limited in the United States. The public narrative has and will end with Fedor losing to “that big guy, man he is huge.” This was confirmed by the ridiculous notion coming from sources such as Yahoo’s and ESPN’s MMA writers that no one was giving Antonio Silva a chance. I had more than one conversation with knowledgeable fans about how likely it was that Bigfoot would hand Emelianenko his second strait loss. Granted most people, including myself, picked Fedor but more out of hope for him and habit than anything else. I even confirmed with one fan that if you forced me to put money on the fight I would probably put it on Silva. However, the fall of Fedor to a “relative unknown” has been the period at the end of this tale for most part. A side note about Silva inevitably pops up, seemingly to prove that Fedor didn’t lose to phantom. Dedicated MMA news sites have featured great work on Antonio Silva but they preach to the choir. In short, not enough was gained for the sport and for the fighters from Fedor’s loss. The UFC hype machine would never let such an injustice stand. The visibility of the company alone would make an instant superstar out of whoever handed Fedor his first defeat and would probably be able to do even more with the man who pummeled Fedor until he could no longer continue. The draw of Emelianenko would be maximized, as would the influence of his every move. This again speaks to the unparalleled power of the UFC but more importantly speaks to its marketing supremacy. The UFC is creative with their approach, they build narratives for their fighters, and they never let the story end with one mans fall from grace. When Chuck Liddell fell Rampage Jackson, Rashad Evans, Keith Jardine, and Shogun Rua and to a lesser extent Rich Franklin all received significant notoriety boosts. As it stands Fedor’s contributions to the sport are wildly significant but tempered by the fact that he fought out of the limelight.
All of the aforementioned points could mistakenly be conflated to the argument that the UFC’s sway in the sport makes it so powerful that Fedor’s decision not to fight there was a mistake. That is not my contention. Each decision came with its own set of costs and own set of benefits. For example, Emelianenko mystique remains in tact, something that likely would have been shed a bit by the UFC hype machine. Of course there is no telling what would have actually happened had Fedor and the UFC come to terms but speculation is a little easier with hindsight. The points to be taken from this long-winded exercise are somewhat simple: The UFC and the rest of the MMA landscape are in the same business, churning out the same product but the UFC has created its own world. Against Fedor’s fall from the top and the narrative thereof we can draw a picture of UFC domination starkly. The picture shows us that the stakes of the game are higher than where a fighter makes his career and weather or not they compete at the highest levels. At stake is a fighter’s legacy if they have a career that summons such a lofty concept as well as the ebb and flow of the sport. The UFC’s power is not absolute and the future of the sport is still up for grabs but it certainly appears as if the center of the MMA universe will continue to be spoken for by Dana White. The UFC’s business practices, many of which are outlined above, have embedded them firmly in a power cycle that continues to place them at the top of the heap.
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