The Bottom Line: Right Time for a UFC Grand Prix

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Since Tyron Woodley knocked out Robbie Lawler at UFC 201 on Saturday in Atlanta, conversation in the MMA world has centered on the preponderance of title changes and upsets in the Ultimate Fighting Championship over the past year. In division after division, promising champions have fallen. Chaos has been the order of the day, and many have lamented the trend because it’s hard for star attractions to rise up in a sport increasingly defined by parity.

It’s true that superstars are the lifeblood of an individual sport like MMA and that it’s hard for any fighter to stand out to the general public when championships flip back and forth so quickly. However, there are pros and cons to any trend, and a smart promoter recognizes how best to capitalize on a changing landscape. The current trend of frequent title changes and deep divisions of evenly matched contenders lends itself to an exciting concept the UFC has not yet attempted: the first ever UFC grand prix tournament.

Tournaments have proven to be successful for many combat sports promotions. K-1 was built around its grand prix tournaments, which were its marquee showcases and drew over 50,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome for 10 straight years. Pride Fighting Championships and Dream likewise drew some of their biggest audiences for tournaments. The UFC has abandoned the tournament format, but it was tournaments that put the organization on the map and created a pay-per-view sensation. The potential for tournaments to do well in the UFC today is far from speculative.

Tournaments are particularly effective at creating new stars, as winning a deep tournament is often perceived to be much more impressive than winning three straight fights. Bellator MMA created most of its stars through tournaments and has struggled to create new stars at the same rate since abandoning them. It was a Strikeforce tournament that took Daniel Cormier from prospect to star. The Super Six Classic in boxing did the same thing for Andre Ward. A Pride grand prix win established Mauricio Rua as a star and was a defining career highlight for others like Mirko Filipovic and Takanori Gomi.

With all that said, the UFC under Zuffa management resisted the use of tournaments for good reason. UFC matchmaking has revolved around making the most lucrative title fights possible. Throwing superstars into tournaments was seen as inferior to simply matching them with the most marketable foes one after another. The rigidity of tournaments could lead to less desirable fights for top fighters and thus less money for the promotion. The whole, in short, was less than the sum of the parts.

The UFC was right to reject tournaments at that time. However, the landscape has now changed. There are few divisions with star champions who tower over the opposition and thus are best matched on a fight-by-fight basis. There are now, by contrast, a number of divisions with plenty of high-caliber fighters at a similar level. Their individual fights don’t stand out, but putting them all together in one tournament would. When fans perceive two fighters as above the rest, one fight provides the best satisfaction. When there are a number of fighters at a similar level, a tournament provides the same satisfaction by allowing one to triumph over all the others.

The UFC has over time become more reliant on its biggest shows to carry the load on pay-per-view. The pay-per-view floor has lowered while the ceiling is as high as ever, meaning the difference between the biggest shows and the smallest is the largest it has ever been. With Ronda Rousey’s fighting future in doubt and while Brock Lesnar and Jon Jones face long suspensions, there are few major attractions available to the UFC for its biggest shows. A major tournament where all the top fighters in a division compete could provide a marketing hook that wouldn’t be there for any single title fight. At the least, it’s a marketing experiment worth trying.

A tournament or tournaments would also be effective in helping create new attractions. In a landscape where new superstars are needed, a grand prix would provide a new and unique credential for the fighter who won. It’s also a title the winner would keep in perpetuity, something more notable during a period when titles come and go so fast.

A key question then: Which divisions would make the most sense for a tournament? Tournaments remain a bad idea for divisions with mega stars who are better off featured on their own. Conor McGregor and Rousey, if she returns, are better off matched with the most interesting individual fight each time out. Obviously, tournaments are also better avoided in divisions that lack depth, like the light heavyweight and flyweight divisions. There are three divisions that stand out as particularly well-suited for a grand prix today: welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight.

At welterweight, there is no single Woodley title defense that will generate widespread fan excitement. Woodley-Stephen Thompson is an interesting fight but not a big event. On the other hand, a tournament featuring Woodley, Thompson, Lawler, Demian Maia, Rory MacDonald, Carlos Condit, Kelvin Gastelum and Neil Magny or Nick Diaz all in the same field could be marketed as a big deal. The title could be defended at each stage, allowing the UFC to have individual title fights while also having a larger draw with all the top fighters competing to crown one ultimate champion.

The same logic would apply to the middleweight and heavyweight fields. Michael Bisping-Chris Weidman, Bisping-Yoel Romero and Bisping-Ronaldo Souza are all compelling title bouts. Even more compelling would be a tournament field with Bisping, Weidman, Souza, Romero, Luke Rockhold, Vitor Belfort, Gegard Mousasi and Anderson Silva. The Stipe Miocic-Alistair Overeem winner facing Cain Velasquez represents a quality title fight, but there is much more sizzle to a tournament with Miocic, Overeem, Velasquez, Fabricio Werdum, Junior dos Santos, Ben Rothwell, Andrei Arlovski and Travis Browne. The UFC may be low on big-time attractions in these divisions, but the company still sports incredible depth and can fairly advertise that it’s putting together the most stacked tournaments in MMA history.

There were good reasons for UFC to resist tournaments in the past, even with their notable upsides. In 2016, the reasons against them have diminished while the reasons in favor of them have increased. The title losses by Werdum, Rockhold and Lawler just cemented the point. The whole package offered by a grand prix tournament is finally greater than the sum of its parts. The UFC would be wise to finally try one out.