MMA in 2014: Headlines That Defined the Year

2014 will not go down as an easy year in MMA history.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it’s difficult to remember another calendar turn when there was such a range of bad news. Cash flow was down, injuries were up, and high-profile arrests seemed weirdly plentiful.

As we thunder toward the home stretch, however, hopes remain high for 2015. Still, choosing a single storyline that “defined” this difficult and occasionally painful year proved a tough task indeed.

Frankly, there were too many headlines to choose from, so please forgive us if your year-defining story of choice didn't make our final list. Here, Bleacher Report MMA writers Jeremy Botter, Chad Dundas (that’s me), Scott Harris and Jonathan Snowden pick their own little darlings and then struggle to come to a consensus.

And the nominees are…

Candidate: Scott Coker Takes over Bellator MMA

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

June 18, 2014. Right now, it's just another day, one of 365 dotting the calendar over the course of 12 glorious months. But if you were to write the history of MMA (and who would be crazy enough to do that?), it's a date that could very well serve as a turning point, a dividing line between two distinct eras.

On that Wednesday in June, for the first time in its six-year history, Bellator MMA got serious. Gone was the graceless Bjorn Rebney, the company's founder and its albatross. In his place was the beloved Scott Coker, former Strikeforce mastermind, back to save MMA from the dire drudgery of being a one-promoter enterprise.

While time will tell whether Coker will make a significant impact on the sport in his second tenure as a major league promoter, there's every reason to be confident. With Strikeforce, he and Showtime were well on their way to building something meaningful—so close that the UFC came swooping in to stop them in their tracks with a money offer Coker's partners couldn't refuse.

With Bellator, Coker will have access to more money and resources than ever before. But he'll also have to navigate a different MMA landscape, one that has seen the UFC systematically sign almost every significant fighter in the world.

The challenge will be stark. But if there's anyone in the world capable of mounting a charge on Castles Zuffa, it's General Coker. He may die at the gates, but he'll make 2015 and beyond mighty interesting.

—Jonathan Snowden

Candidate: MMA's War on PEDs Heats Up

Gregory Payan/Associated Press

In our sport’s ongoing battle against performance-enhancing drugs, 2014 began with a surprise. At what was expected to be a routine meeting in February, the Nevada State Athletic Commission abruptly banned testosterone replacement therapy—the controversial medical treatment that for years had been aiding aging MMA fighters in their quest to stay young.

Simultaneously, the NSAC and the UFC vowed to step up random, surprise drug testing, and those moves conspired to keep PEDs in the spotlight throughout the year. TRT poster boy Vitor Belfort’s middleweight title fight against Chris Weidman was put on hold, and Belfort missed all of 2014. Wanderlei Silva was forced into retirement (and disgrace) when he ran out on an NSAC drug screener.

And Chael Sonnen? Well, we all know what happened there.

Drug busts were not limited to the upper echelon. Bit-part players Kevin Casey, Robert Drysdale, Mike King, Brian Ortega and Piotr Hallmann all got popped at UFC events this year. So did Ali Bagautinov (after his UFC 174 title shot, no less) and Dennis Siver.

To make matters even weirder, Cung Le was suspended for elevated levels of HGH in August but later had his suspension quashed after he alleged the UFC had mishandled his test sample.

Things were not much better in Bellator, where Herman Terrado, Keith Berry and Nick Moghaddam all failed tests this year.

So, yeah, 2014 included some steps forward in MMA’s war on PEDs, but the struggle is far from over.

—Chad Dundas

Candidate: CM Punk Signs with the UFC

Jim R. Bounds/Associated Press

With apologies to Reebok and drug users and shadowy potential lawsuits, no story drove more traffic or inspired more vitriol than the signing of Phil "CM Punk" Brooks to a UFC contract. The former WWE Superstar has never competed in a mixed martial arts fight, and his only real credential is that people know who he is.

And that's the biggest part of the story, because it encapsulates the UFC's standing heading into 2015. It isn't the biggest sport in the world—in fact, its popularity is on the decline—so it must make moves like this to bring back fans who have little interest in violence in a cage, even under the guise of art.

If everything was going OK for the UFC, you'd never see Brooks with a UFC contract. But everything is not OK, and so we see the UFC making moves that don't make a lot of sense, like signing a 36-year-old man with zero real fighting history.

I'm a supporter of the move. I don't believe the UFC is a real sporting organization any more than I believe the WWE is one. It is a sports-entertainment organization, just like its Vince McMahon-led brethren, and that fact makes moves like this a little easier to swallow.

I'm fine with CM Punk signing with the UFC. Go get John Cena and Jack Swagger and anyone else you want too. Just stop pretending you're looking to be the biggest sport in the world and admit you are an entertainment company. We'll all be fine with that stance.

—Jeremy Botter

Candidate: Oversaturation

Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Even the topic of oversaturation is oversaturated. Every time we're reminded of oversaturation, which is nearly every weekend, we again saturate the MMA airwaves with the same talking points.

But that doesn't make the talking points any less valid. In fact, perhaps it underscores them. Forty-five events took place in 2014, not including the "postponed" UFC 176. On seven different occasions, the UFC staged two events in the same weekend. That's 13 percent of my weekends, man. And in five of those instances, two events took place on the same day.

As much as I might like it to be otherwise, there's more at issue here than my weekends. With so many mouths to feed—pay-per-views, Fox, Fox Sports 1, the UFC Fight Pass streaming service, domestic and overseas audiences—it's understandable that the product would get spread a little thinner. And hey, there was a time not long ago when fans pined for high-level MMA every weekend.

On the other hand, is this really high-level MMA? Scads of anonymous men and women slug it out on laptop screens. Big events feel smaller. And there never seems to be enough time to digest much of anything before it's time to rush on to the next thing.

Admittedly, there's no easy solution. And with another 45 events slated for 2015, it's certainly not abating. Looks like we might be reading this headline for a while.

—Scott Harris

Winner: PEDs

Andre Penner/Associated Press

Of all the MMA-related stories in 2014, none will prove as momentous or have longer tentacles than the ongoing fight against PEDs—specifically, the death knell for TRT.

The sudden banishment of TRT has already called into question the resumes of top fighters such as Vitor Belfort, Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen. With Belfort somehow still scheduled to fight for the UFC middleweight title, the story will spill into 2015 as well.

The UFC has vowed to greatly ramp up its own drug testing next year, which means there is a high likelihood there will be even more headlines to come.