Do morally righteous MMA fans exist?
I will never forget my sixth-grade self sitting on the couch while a trailer played for UFC 181. A training clip of then welterweight champion, Johny Hendricks, appeared in the trailer and I exclaimed “I can do that!” after watching him hit a double leg takedown on one of his training partners. Having begun my amateur wrestling career just a few weeks prior to this clip, it was in this moment that I realized this sport was not so different than mine, and the adoration for Mixed Martial Arts was a visceral passion within me that grew like the roaring of a fire with the addition of combustible entities.
Cut to today, over a decade later, and my beloved sport of MMA has seemingly become overshadowed by right-wing politics and a lack of accountability for any immoral or unrighteous actions committed by fighters and promoters.
Compared to more mainstream sports, MMA is still in its infancy and is rapidly changing. I have lived through moments in time where Dana White and the Ultimate Fighting Championship were in the business of changing public discourse regarding cagefighting. With athletes being labeled as “human cock fighters,” this reputation seemingly could not hold to give MMA the same regard as the other mainstream sports like baseball, soccer, football, hockey, and others.
So, what did they do? Dana White and the UFC campaigned to change this opinion, eventually achieving MMA legalization in all 50 states and being one of, if not the fastest rising sports in the world.
And, how did they do this? Of course, the easiest way was explaining that Mixed Martial Arts was not synonymous with “human cock fighting” which seems to point to an animalistic and unartistic form of combat only open to those with repressed anger and pent up aggression. Rather, MMA is exactly what the name explicates: art. Art that is not performed by demented beasts of our society, but instead by bright and intellectual individuals who can grasp the notion of human combat in a more spiritual and philosophical manner. One of the best examples of this lies within this clip of Dana White confronting UFC protestors.
If you have never heard of the UFC or Dana White, the clip embedded in the previous paragraph will stand as a stark contrast to this headline from the beginning of 2023:
Yep, you read that right. Not only was Dana White caught on camera committing domestic violence, but the only punishment he considered was the damage it would do to his public reputation.
What changed? How did we go from a sport that needed a positive change of public opinion to a sport whose leading promoter is an evidentiary domestic violence perpetrator that can commit these immoral acts with seemingly no real consequences?
While there can be no definitive answer, the only speculative answer I can provide is based on my experience as an MMA fan which cannot possibly hold the totality of reasons for this change. There are a few reasons why I think this turnover has happened.
Firstly, the UFC has achieved the positive public notion of MMA that they so hoped for a decade ago. This is evident with the aforementioned legalization in all 50 states, their exclusive TV deal with ESPN, and the value of the company reaching billions of dollars.
Secondly, the UFC has dominated the MMA market. Name another MMA promotion, I’ll wait… unless you are or know a devout MMA fan, chances are there was no answer that sprung to your mind. And this is because the UFC has made a blatant effort to eradicate the existence of other promotions which has given them complete control over the MMA market.
Thirdly, the MMA organization has also outrightly paired itself with right-wing political and social media figures to boost the visibility of their brand. Having Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Tate, and a slew of other morally unrighteous right-wing figures cage side for the most prestigious bouts in MMA, has made the spectacle entirely more difficult to swallow and I often find myself at odds with my own morals when watching my favorite sport.
This third point is, in my opinion, the most important to analyzing and answering the question in the title of this post. What the alignment of right-wing figures has caused is a mirror of right-wing ideologies onto UFC policy. None of them more obvious than that of free speech (however free it actually is, is a topic for another article, but just ask Belal Muhammad or Francis Ngannou). There used to be a moment in time where Miguel Torres got cut from the UFC for joking about rape on Twitter. Now, UFC fighters get away with wearing misogynistic apparel to press conferences, using racist and homophobic slurs, praising Hitler, and other equally, if not more, abhorrent acts. Clearly, the UFC is not in the same position it was a decade ago when they were doing everything in their power to make people think the best of their athletes. In fact, they have done a complete 180 and the repugnant personalities assumed within the MMA community are now being shoved down fans’ throats.
So, as someone who is not a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, or a victim of toxic masculinity, how am I supposed to continue watching my favorite sport? Well, to be frank, I don’t think there will ever be a world in which I am not a fan of MMA. But just because I am a fan of MMA, does not mean I am a fan of the UFC, and these two things should not be conflated.
UFC fans hold the organization on a pedestal, failing to criticize the most obvious immoral business decisions like low fighter pay, or rejecting any MMA competition outside of the UFC. These UFC bootlickers are akin to cult followers. In contrast, MMA fans can ignore the politicization of the sport and focus solely on the art of the martial arts. Rather than watching because there is a big fight, I watch MMA for the quality of talent and to see the relevant techniques being put on display so I can take them back to the training room with me for my own hobbyist interests. It seems like I should be able to do this without the fear of being people presuming I lean right on the political scale.
But this sentiment is still problematic - just ignoring politics does not mean they are not there or that they will seemingly go away. I will still remain reluctant to share that I am an MMA fan with my peers based on the reputation the UFC has garnered and I feel inclined to preface any of my UFC talk with “I don’t agree with a lot of what the organization does, but! the fights themselves are banging.”
Likewise, these two things overlap: you cannot be a fan of MMA without seemingly being a fan of the UFC and vice versa. After all, how am I supposed to watch the best of what MMA has to offer without watching UFC fights? Their dominance over the market leaves me with no other choice. But does my reliance on the organization to produce the content I like to see automatically make me a fan? I do not think so, allow me to explain:
While fandom implies supporting and having admiration for a person, organization, or concept, this is clearly not my conviction when it comes to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Yet, a portion of this definition holds truth because I do support the UFC by following them on social media and subscribing to the respective streaming services to watch their fights. However, I definitely do not have any admiration for the company and, so it seems, while one can be in support of something pragmatically, they may not hold the necessary commendation to be labeled as a ‘fan.’ And here, the answer to the latter question lies: you can be a fan of MMA without being a fan of the UFC.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a concrete way to go about this moral quandary, but I believe morally righteous MMA fans do exist, and maybe even a lot more than you’d think. You just might not recognize this because, if they’re like me, they probably do not vocalize their enjoyment for UFC due to their political ties and this poses an even greater threat to the company - if they’re are cultivating their product to appeal to people with a specific worldview, won’t this lead to the loss of fans who don’t share the same worldview?
My hunch is yes, of course this will happen. Fans will stop watching the UFC, and MMA more broadly, if the overwhelming majority of fans holds views that are contrary to their own. But unless the UFC has such a drop off in fandom that they start to lose capital, it just does not seem like this will change, and under a second Trump presidency, the tolerance to right-wing ideologies in an effort for political and/or social approval is at the forefront of American society.