MMA Moments in 2017 We Can't Wait to Forget About
MMA mirrored the rest of the world in 2017. It was a strange year, and it wasn't always good.
Entering the negotiating period for a critical new broadcasting contract and with still-new UFC owners WME-IMG yet to make a major impact on that operation, TV ratings wobbled from respectable to lukewarm to record-breakingly abysmal. Speaking to a major lack of star power, no UFC pay-per-view event topped one million buys in 2017.
That said, there's plenty to love in this wild sport. Fighters like Demetrious Johnson, Max Holloway, Cris Cyborg and a host of others are a joy to watch. MMA is still the purest sport out there, with the toughest and bravest athletes still fueling that fire.
But those athletes, and the promotions that promote them, don't always help their own cause of advancing the sport beyond hardcore fans and the sports-bar crowd.
With the sun rising on 2018, here's hoping for a great year for the sport we love. To do that, we first have to say goodbye to those moments we'd most like to forget.
Conor-Floyd Is Fun but Hamstrings UFC
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The promotional tour for Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather was one of those things that was awesome right up until the moment it wasn’t.
Like many of you, I was more excited for the promotional hubbub surrounding the August boxing match than the actual boxing match itself. I knew, being of sound mind and vision, that Mayweather was likely to trounce McGregor with ease. The fun part of the "fun" fight, to me, would be the stuff that came before the actual fight. Two master promoters and larger-than-life characters, hitting the road to do their best P.T. Barnum impersonations? That was something to look forward to.
Things started off so well on the big tour, too. There was a crackle in the air, a real sense of electricity. But as the tour wore on, things took a turn for the worse. And by worse, I mean the obnoxious and racist.
By the time the boys had arrived in London, we were well and truly over the whole thing. There's only so much one can listen to rich megabrats using their allotted time on the microphone to brag about just how rich they are. The whole thing went over the rails and erupted into flames at the bottom of the canyon, and few of us were interested in putting out the fire.
We still watched, of course. And Mayweather embarrassed McGregor, of course. But I can't help wonder if the whole thing could've been even more of a happening had both men recognized their schtick turning from novelty to nausea in real time, as it held up the UFC lightweight division and deprived the sport of its most marketable star, even as that star brought arguable embarrassment on the thing that got him famous in the first place.
Germaine de Randamie, UFC Featherweight Champion (for a Few Minutes)
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If we were giving out an award for the thing that was literally the most forgettable of 2017, the women's featherweight title reign of Germaine de Randamie would surely win it.
When the 2017 calendar closed out by way of a bout between Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm for that same belt at UFC 219, it was easy to forget it got to Cyborg's waist after a detour through de Randamie. The Iron Lady beat Holm for it, in fact.
However as soon as she did, and the realization that she would soon have to fight the most vicious 145-pound woman to ever live set in, the Dutchwoman also realized she was actually not iron at all. She was instead very brittle-boned—in her hand, in particular—and that she would be out for a long time.
How long? Well, however long she needed to be to avoid Cyborg.
When people called her on it, she and her team pivoted to an abstractly moral position founded on Cyborg’s failed drug test from six years ago, but the damage had been done. Few were interested in her as a champion, and no one sided with her dodging her first title test so obviously.
All's well that ends well though, as 2018 begins with Cyborg in her rightful place as a feared champion and de Randamie back in the middle of the pack at bantamweight.
Colby Covington and 'Filthy Animals'
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Fighters continually seek new ways to market themselves and get noticed by the masses. Occasionally, playing the role of the heel is the best route to achieving this goal. But when it comes in the package that Colby Covington is selling, we should all want to forget it heading into the new year.
Covington is a talent. That needs to be stressed. But in 2017 he used blatant racism and homophobia in an attempt to draw heat from MMA fans, including by calling Brazilian fight fans "filthy animals."
The action drew heat from fellow fighters such as Fabricio Werdum, a Brazilian who attempted to hit him with a boomerang, and Jon Jones, per Milan Ordonez of Bloody Elbow.
Calling an entire nation of people "animals" is wrong. Simply wrong. Maybe it earned him some notoriety, but all publicity is not good publicity, and Covington may learn that the next time he takes a loss. It's not any way to endear yourself to anyone, nor should it be. Using homophobic slurs (and getting away with it) is a thing of the past for good reason. Fighters can still effectively play the heel without delving into the least common denominator, and Covington should look at 2018 as an opportunity to change course while still maintaining his "bad guy" routine.
Let's forget the kind of garbage and disrespectful trash talk of 2017 and strive to be better in 2018.
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War Machine Heads Up the River
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Jon Koppenhaver long ago became the symbol of the seedy and grotesque soft underbelly of mixed martial arts, and an example of how a sport built on drawing blood and hurting other human beings might occasionally attract participants who hold few redeeming qualities.
Long before he changed his real name to his silly mixed martial arts nickname, Koppenhaver was troubled. He was booted from The Citadel for poor behavior, and his descent into the depraved was only enhanced by his discovery of a sport where violence wins plaudits. He was arrested multiple times and spent long durations in jail, almost always for violent offenses.
Today, Koppenhaver sits in a Nevada jail cell, which is where he'll spend the remainder of his days on this planet, after being convicted of the horrible sexual assault and kidnapping of his ex-girlfriend Christy Mack. Sure, he's eligible for parole after 36 years, but something tells me Koppenhaver will never again see the sunshine as a free man, and that is for the best. He is a forgettable and shameful chapter, not just of mixed martial arts history, but of our collective histories, and such men do not deserve to walk among us.
Werdum and the Warlord
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Remember two years ago, when Fabricio Werdum was the Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist who made a funny face? How great was that in retrospect? Over the last year, though, we've really gotten to know who Werdum really is as a person, and boy, it ain't pretty.
The first signs that everything wasn't on the up and up came back in 2015, when Werdum signed on to be the MMA ambassador for Akhmat Fight Club, a pet project of Chechen despot and notorious human rights abuser Ramzan Kadyrov—himself a big focus of what's wrong in MMA (maybe fighters wouldn't take his handouts if they were paid a fair wage in America).
At face value, it wasn't necessarily a huge deal for Werdum. At this point, the world lacked familiarity with Kadyrov (this was before his beef with talk show host John Oliver) and a slew of other boxers and fighters were finding their way to Chechnya to pal around with the man who (allegedly) reveled in personally torturing captives.
As time went on and the world became more familiar with Kadyrov, fighters began visiting Chechnya less and less frequently...except for Werdum. Through the thicks of hosting MMA fights between eight-year-old children and the thins of a purge of sexual minorities, Werdum stuck by his man and has looked worse and worse for it.
Believe it or not, things don't end there!
When Werdum wasn't helping to solidify the Kadyrov regime, he was frequently found picking fights with people smaller than him in 2017.
In March, the former heavyweight champion had a heated back-and-forth with middleweight contender Luke Rockhold. Perhaps after remembering that Rockhold is actually a massive dude, he set his sights much lower (literally) in September by trying to get physical with at-the-time lightweight contender Tony Ferguson. Things got even worse in November when he allegedly sucker-punched welterweight loudmouth Colby Covington before not allegedly hitting him in the head with a boomerang.
It's a pattern of steady escalation from the Brazilian, and at this point, I'm hoping he just goes away before he creates more bad memories.
Gambling Bust in South Korea
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Dicey gambling casts a shadow over all of sports, but the shadow may be longest and darkest for combat sports. Fight-fixing was once the way of the world. It has improved but is not gone yet. A recent public reminder of this fact occurred just this year, and it wasn't in some obscure league overseas. It was right here, in the big, bad UFC.
In November, Korean lightweight Tae Hyun Bang received 10 months in prison for taking $92,000 to throw a 2015 UFC bout with Leo Kuntz. Even though he apparently agreed to lose the bout, he went on to win the contest by split decision.
Nevertheless, Bang, who is no longer in the UFC, took the money and it was right that he was punished accordingly. Some may view this as a relatively harmless crime, but it strikes at the heart of the sport. If people come to believe the action is manipulated, they might as well flip over to WWE.
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