It's Only Been A Year...

by Chris Groves on Aug 18, 2011 7:06 PM EDT

The official announcement of the forthcoming parnership between the UFC and Fox elicits thoughts of just how far the sport of MMA has come since in infancy...since Royce Gracie submitted the likes of Art Jimmerson. Just in the past year, the climate change in the landscape of MMA has been something worth taking a step back to marvel at.

August 18th, 2010 - The night of WEC 50: Cruz vs Benavidez 2. Benavidez wasn't able to avenge his loss and Cruz remained the champ. In the co-main event Anthony Pettis secured his chance at a title shot against Ben Henderson.

Just 11 days prior, Anderson Silva had pulled off one of the craziest come from behind victories of all time against Chael Sonnen while Junior Dos Santos earned himself a shot at the Heavyweight title against the winner of Lesnar-Velasquez.

At this point, many were anticipating the rematch between BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar at UFC 118, with most anticipating Penn to get the belt back, and for Couture to prove a point to loud mouth James Toney.

On the other side of things, rival promotion Strikeforce was 3 days away from 'Strikeforce: Houston' where Rafael 'Feijao' Cavalcante would dethrone King Mo Lawal to become the new SF Light Heavyweight champion...and Ronaldo Souza would win an allegedly 'controversial'(according to Kennedy, at least) decision over Tim Kennedy.

And to think it's only been a year.

If you would have told me as I was watching Anthony Pettis submit Shane Roller that a year in the future, the WEC would no longer exist, that all 3 of those divisions would be folded into the UFC, that Zuffa would own Strikeforce, that GSP was about to defend his title against Nick Diaz, that any unaired prliminary fight on a UFC card would be available to stream live and free on Facebook, that the UFC would switch it's free programming from Spike TV to FX and would also air 4 events a year on Fox...I don't know if I would have believed half of it.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 2 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

As a long-time fan of MMA...

Who started by watching videos of bas rutten, tank abbott, and Vitor on bearshare and kazaa, this past year has been rather dizzying when you put it into perspective.

"Maybe, you throw some pepper at him."
-Bas Rutten

by mmazing on Aug 18, 2011 7:14 PM EDT reply actions

Can you even imagine what's coming next?

C’mon Chris, let’s get some speculation.

"Maybe, you throw some pepper at him."
-Bas Rutten

by mmazing on Aug 18, 2011 7:15 PM EDT reply actions

Don't ask me, I'm no prophet

I fantasized about the idea of UFC just buying out Strikeforce back in the day…but I never thought it would realistically happen for whatever reason.

If you’re going to ask me what I’d like to see happen, I just want the UFC and MMA to become bigger and better then ever. The news of the re-vamping of TUF and the revamping of the graphics and presentation of the UFC is awesome to me.

I’d like to see huge ratings on Fox and FX and just see where it goes from there.

I mean, outside of buying out yet another competitor entirely like Bellator…I just don’t know what could happen next. I mean, a network deal has always been that big ‘If the UFC coud just get THERE’ type of outcome…so to see it actually happen is quite crazy.

Who knows.

PACIFIC RIM
in theaters
July 12th, 2013

by Chris Groves on Aug 18, 2011 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions

All those things aside, I still find it hard to believe

That 2011 has actually delivered on its promise of being one of the best MMA years ever. Such a litany of great cards and fights already with a lot still to come.

And it’s been a whirlwind. If you had told me last year that SF would actually put a HW GP together (though predictably it turned out to be a mess) I’d have laughed. To say nothing of the UFC buying them out or DREAM putting on a card in 2011 or that Jon Jones would have become LHW champ so early in the year.

by Gitaroo_Dude on Aug 19, 2011 1:18 AM EDT reply actions

True

I remember the early promise of 2011…we were looking forward to the very relevant SF GP and a big series of upcoming summer cards.

But the 2nd half of the first round of the GP was delayed from April to May, on top of Zuffa buying SF…which kinda killed some of the excitement because SF was no longer truly a competitor with the UFC.

UFC 130, UFC 131 and UFC on Versus 5 all had their main events nixed or downgraded. Overeem dropped out of the GP. Things were just looking sort of grim for a while.

But now we’ve got a lot of big cards coming up. We’ve even got a free title fight, a card with two title fights and a #1 contender match, and a champion vs champion fight with GSP and Diaz, etc.

Then this Fox deal, it’s just a huge massive, awesome deal for the UFC to move forward and for the sport of MMA to continue to grow.

PACIFIC RIM
in theaters
July 12th, 2013

by Chris Groves on Aug 19, 2011 1:59 PM EDT up reply actions