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.