The Bottom Line: UFC 200 Reflects MMA’s Slowing Evolution

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.

***
When UFC 100 took place in July 2009, it was a milestone that allowed MMA’s supporters to take stock of how far the sport had come. There was widespread media coverage of the event, and a loaded card that signified it was a particularly important show. It was not only an attempt to draw the most money possible for the event itself but also specifically designed to make a statement about the evolution of MMA.

That evolution was far from subtle. At UFC 1, fans went into the event having no idea what to expect. It was spectacle more than sport, with few of the competitors in peak athletic shape and fewer still knowing what exactly they were getting themselves into. From Art Jimmerson trying to fight with one boxing glove to Teila Tuli getting his teeth dislodged, chaos was the order of the day.

By the time UFC 100 rolled around, the game had fully changed, and those changes were dramatic, not subtle. The sport had for the most part shed its bloodsport label, adding weight classes and a clearly defined set of rules. It was now easy to find on television. Fans went into UFC 100 knowing exactly what sort of event they would be watching and the traits of the fighters in all the big fights. The motley crew from UFC 1 had been replaced by Olympians, NCAA champions and world-class athletes like Georges St. Pierre and Jon Jones.

There have been plenty of events between UFC 100 and UFC 200. UFC 100 was the 133rd event in Ultimate Fighting Championship history while UFC 200 will be the whopping 363rd. The sport has continued to change, as well. More weight classes have been added, including women’s divisions. The UFC has started promoting events at larger venues, running occasional stadium shows. The sport has grown in Mexico and Brazil thanks to major television deals there. The sport is now mostly populated by fighters who started training specifically for MMA rather than a single discipline. However, the changes in the sport have been largely incremental in nature. The basics are all the same.

If you took a fan in attendance at UFC 1 and then showed that person UFC 100, it would be shocking to see what UFC would grow into. Beyond the Octagon, UFC 100 would be hardly recognizable. On the other hand, if you took an attendee from UFC 100 and showed that person UFC 200, it’s likely that the event is going to feel highly familiar. The arena in Vegas will be a little bit bigger, Brock Lesnar will be a little bit older and women will be participating, but the sport has settled into its identity. We don’t know who the top fighters will be at UFC 300, but it seems easy to predict what the fights will look like and how the event will run.

MMA’s slowing evolution is in some ways a melancholy development for longtime followers of the sport. Part of the fun of MMA the past 20 years relative to other sports is that it was still in its embryonic stages. It wasn’t always clear which direction the sport would head, where the epicenters of the sport would be and which types of fighters would tend to do better. Younger MMA fans got to experience what it must have been like during the days of the ABA, the switch away from baseball’s dead-ball era or the rise of the forward pass in football.

The evolution was wild like in those other sports, with frequent unforeseen changes. At one point, the common wisdom was that grapplers would hold a perpetual edge over strikers. Pride Fighting Championships’ reign as MMA’s top organization seemed like it would last forever. The sport could have settled into a system where rule changes occur on a regular basis, like in other major sports leagues, but instead, the rules have become much more difficult to alter. It was uncertain for years where MMA could run, while now widespread MMA legalization and regulation seems set.

The stakes feel higher when the future seems more uncertain. As UFC 200 quickly approaches, MMA’s future feels secure and clear. The positive aspects of the sport will be difficult to undo, but so too will it be difficult to make changes for the better. The drama, like the drama in the NFL or NBA, rests pretty much entirely in who proves to be the best.

A clearer future, of course, is not without its positives. There was a time when the Fertittas negotiating to sell the UFC would have set off widespread panic among MMA fans. However, the sport is so well developed and settled at this point that news of sales negotiations was greeted with relative calm. New owners would not need to figure out how to run a unique sport on their own because the formula has been clearly laid out for them. It’s nowhere near as foolproof a venture as purchasing an NFL team, but it’s not the Wild West that greeted Zuffa when it purchased the UFC from Semaphore Entertainment Group.

For fans who just want to see the best compete against the best, the future is likely to look a lot like the present. That’s decidedly a good thing and no small feat if you look at the sorry state of professional boxing in that regard. UFC 200 from top to bottom is filled with high quality, competitive matchups. It’s even more oriented towards those who follow the sport closely than casual fans drawn in by the 200 name or Lesnar’s return.

UFC 200 doesn’t feel like the milestone that UFC 100 was, partly because MMA hasn’t come nearly so far and partly because MMA as a sport is no longer in need of milestones to measure its progress. The sport has settled into its identity and lineups speak for themselves. MMA is no longer searching; it’s a fully matured entity.