The Bottom Line: Thrilling Beginning, Melancholy End

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

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It’s finally here. Over 21 years since the Ultimate Fighting Championship last held an event in the state of New York, the sport on Saturday will make its triumphant return. MMA isn’t just entering into another major city; it’s kicking the door down of the most famous arena in the world. UFC 205 (current odds) is on paper easily one of the most impressive cards in the sport’s history, and it will set the gate record for any event in the history of the building. It’s an altogether exciting night for a sport that has come a long way in a short time. Still, there’s a touch of a bittersweet feel given the specific history of MMA.

Since its inception, MMA has been an outlaw sport. That was part of its fundamental makeup, written into the sport’s DNA. The UFC at first was marketed as bloodsport, sold on blood and the lack of rules. Politicians excoriated it, the sports media ignored it and outlaws flocked to it. In Japan, a group of rogue pro wrestlers turned their backs on their tradition and worked match training to embark on a risky new path. MMA wasn’t just an underground sport like other sports with less popularity and visibility; it was a sport defined by its rebel identity like ice hockey is defined by cold weather.

That identity became a badge of honor for MMA fans as the sport sunk deeper underground. As the UFC lost its sanctioning in many states and MMA was no longer widely available on pay-per-view, MMA fans gravitated to sites like Sherdog to keep track of the sport. A community formed with its own club rules and unique knowledge. For anyone who stayed up until the middle of the night just to read live text results of Pride Fighting Championships events from Japan, it’s startling that 15 years later MMA is drawing a bigger gate in Madison Square Garden than the Knicks, Rangers or Rolling Stones ever have.

Over time, one obstacle after another on the road to respectability fell. The sport got back on all the major pay-per-view outlets. The UFC aired taped fights on basic cable, then live fights, then live fights on network television. The North American fighters who went overseas for bigger paychecks returned stateside. MMA began drawing pay-per-view numbers on par with the biggest boxing and pro wrestling events, then began drawing television numbers for its biggest free events comparable to other major sports. The sport became sanctioned in new states and new countries seemingly every few months for a period.

As MMA passed numerous milestones towards a fully mainstream identity, there remained one major holdout. Despite Marc Ratner’s extended efforts, the UFC just couldn’t break its way into New York. It still couldn’t run events in the nation’s biggest city. The New York politicians who rejected MMA made it clear that the sport might be fine for other areas but that they still didn’t want to be associated with it. Full respectability always seemed a step around the corner, and New York was the sharpest reminder of that fact.

That changes on Saturday. There will be little left separating MMA from any other major sport. It has the same press coverage, the same television availability, the same top-flight sponsors and the same fan awareness. UFC 205 will be treated as the major sports event that it is and will take place on sport’s biggest stage. MMA is fully grown up. In some ways, that’s a distinct positive. This is what the sport sought for all these years. On the other hand, there’s also the feeling that something is being lost.

Like a parent that has seen a child grow up and is now leaving for college, MMA fans will have to accept their sport is leaving the unique developmental stage they got to experience and future MMA fans will not. Like fans of an underground band that is now going platinum, MMA fans no longer have their passion to themselves. The “TUF noobs” have now been around nearly as long as UFC 1 fans had when “The Ultimate Fighter” debuted. That’s how long the sport has been on major television networks in front of millions of viewers. There is no final battle to be won on the way to full mainstream acceptance; this is it.

Supporters of the sport fought hard to get to this point. They wanted MMA and its fighters to be treated with respect and admiration. They desired easy accessibility to high-level fights. They tired of ignorant attacks that lasted far longer than they should have. They got all of those things. MMA is now fully mainstream. Yet there is a price to be paid. Our underground identity, so long central to what MMA was, has faded away and is no more.