Should MMA Crown Its Yearly Champion Through a Regular Season Format?

Many of the problems that people seem to associate with mixed martial arts could be eliminated by acting like other professional sports do. Let’s take a look at a few of the structural changes the UFC should bring about as the premier organization in mixed martial arts.

First off the UFC is doing a great job by eliminating other wannabe organizations. What would be best for the sport is if the UFC was like Major League Baseball with a strong minor league system. Here fighters could properly develop their skills before coming up to the big league.

If they get called up to the big league, and lose their first couple fights, they are sent back to the minor league if they are still a prospect. It would be good to have several regional leagues where fighters could build up their name in particular market and then, when they get their chance, come upon the national scene with a strong fan base.

Another problem is that there is no regular season format with a playoff system to determine the champion. This would take the guesswork out who should be awarded what fight, eliminating controversy. Within the regular season there would a certain amount of fights that each fighter had, as part of their season.

Why should some fighters fight once or twice a year while others fight as much as six times? We need consistent fight schedules to make it fair to all fighters.

A fighter could reasonably fight every month barring injury. So if we had an eight month season a fighter could fight eight times a year. This doesn’t include the playoffs. So now that we know how many fights there are in a season we can determine how many fighters should be allowed into the league and more importantly how to determine that.

I like the idea of a 12 man league with six men in two divisions. Each fighter would fight the other five men in their league plus three of the men in the other league to get their 8 fights for the season. There would be the customary rules to for tie breakers.

So if only 12 men are in the major league where does that leave every other fighter? In the minor leagues of course. After each season the league would determine which fighters deserve to stay in the league and which ones should be sent back to the minors.

Most likely there would be some computer based BCS like system to aid in their decisions. The vacant spots would be filled with the hot prospects. Fighters would get locked in for the season, barring injury.

And so we hit upon the biggest problem with this model. When a teammate is injured the team can go on without them. When it’s a single fighter it’s a different scenario. This is where some creativity comes into play. The injured fighter could choose, before the season, which fighter from the minor league would represent him to fill in for a fight.

The pinch fighter would fill in until the fighter could come back and resume his season. This would inevitably lead to the formation of teams of fighters in the same weight class who train together. This is similar to what happens in NASCAR where you have a team of racers with the primary guy on the team doing the driving.

To make this model a bit more concrete I will use current fighters along with their rankings. Again, I borrow upon bloody elbow’s meta-rankings to determine who to fill in the league with. The divisions are evened out ranking wise, similar to tournament seeding. This includes other MMA fighters, not just UFC, since it is the Major League of MMA. One fighter note: Tito Ortiz was selected even though he is currently unsigned.

Light Heavyweight Division 1

1. Forrest Griffin

4. Rashad Evans

6. Wanderlei Silva

7. Mauricio Rua

9. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou

12. Tito Ortiz

Light Heavyweight Division 2

2. Rampage Jackson

3. Lyoto Machida

5. Chuck Liddell

8. Keith Jardine

10. Thiago Silva

11. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

The playoffs would consist of the top 2 fighters in each league going at it for the division champion. So let’s attach some numbers to the fighters to make it more fun.

Division 1 championship fight

Forrest Griffin (7-1) vs. Wanderlei Silva (6-2)

Division 2 championship fight

Rampage Jackson (7-1) vs. Lyoto Machida (8-0)

The playoffs would add another two months to the season making it 10 months long. This would give the fighters a two month off season.

At the end of this first season Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell decided to retire. Also, Keith Jardine, due to one to many devastating knockouts and inconsistency was cut from the major league. He was picked up by the northeast minor league system where he will train with a boxing coach and BJJ coach to improve his overall fighting style.

This cleared the room for some new blood in the MLMMA. Luiz Arthur Cane and Goran Reljic were called up due to their success in their regional leagues. Rick Franklin competed at the 185 division this past year and is getting a special exemption to move up to a new division.

The leagues will be reshuffled each year as it is not important to establish rivalries or compete based on location.

One thing I do like about this idea is that a fighter could lose within a year’s time, say have a 6-2 record and not be considered disposable and called upon to retire. At the worst, a fighter with a 4-4 record could come back the following year to prove himself or get sent back to one of the minor leagues to retool.

This would give the fighter’s more of a stable career in some sense. The only thing I am unsure of is a fighter could sustain eight fights in a year plus the playoffs. Prevention of injuries would be a major focus and would likely water down the intensity of the sport.

So I am done playing mad scientist and also, to some extent, devils advocate. I thought it would be interesting to see what it would look like to put the initial concept of a “Mixed Martial Arts Major League” down on paper. I am definitely intrigued, although I am not sure I would be willing to give up the creativity & flexibility of the current Wild West system we currently have.

What I do know is that change is inevitable and as MMA and the UFC grow up those changes will be dictated, more and more, by the same things that all businesses are subject to. And in the process many of the things we have enjoyed about the sport will be relegated to the past.