Why UFC Is the First Sport to Return During the Coronavirus – The New York Times

It comes as no surprise to its ardent followers that the Ultimate Fighting Championship, known as U.F.C., will be the first organization to stage a major professional sports event in the United States since the spread of Covid-19 induced a monthslong live sports hiatus. Its brash president, Dana White, never wanted to cease operations in the first place.

I wanted to keep right on going; well figure this thing out, Mr. White told Sports Illustrated. If this thing is that deadly, its gonna get us no matter where we hide or what we do.

In April, through U.F.C., Mr. White rented a private island where he is planning to put on fights by late June, involving international mixed martial arts fighters who may have difficulty securing visas. The territory which Mr. White has crowned Fight Island could stage bouts for the duration of the pandemic, or perhaps beyond, he says.

The mixed martial arts, or MMA, fighters he oversees who are of various cultural and political leanings have a similar attitude. And so, the athletes will be back in action even sooner: Theres a fight Saturday night. Not on Fight Island, where the venue is still under construction, but in Florida at the Jacksonville Arena, where lightweights Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje will square off in the headline bout. Neither man seems concerned. I hope he breaks my nose, Ive been waiting to get it fixed. Mr. Gaethje said tauntingly. Maybe hell plant an elbow on there.

The road to this return, which will be without fans in the stands, was rocky. The first attempt resulted in a false start, as a planned April 18 card on Native American tribal land in California was scuttled amid objections from top state officials and television partners. But the efforts never stalled, nor did they lack for outlandish ingenuity.

While most in official quarters have excoriated these moves, many grass-roots sports fans on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram and other forums have cheered on the U.F.C.s gung-ho determination to fight on in the face of a tsk-tsk from the powers that be. That scorn for politesse, the embrace of gritty, defiant independence and the nihilism toward the consequences are all a microcosm of what makes the combat sport excite so many people.

Its what took U.F.C. from a ragtag competition held in tents in the 1990s (a sport that the late Senator John McCain once famously dismissed as human cockfighting) to the signature franchise for mixed martial arts, airing on ESPN in prime-time cable ever since the network agreed to a $1.5 billion megadeal to gain its television rights.

There are, of course, countless people who would be happy to watch any live sport right now. Still, the U.F.C. has a unique and enduring appeal to a coarsened America that was there before this pandemic and that will thrive in its aftermath.

Back in November, when Covid-19 was on the verge of spreading in China, President Trump, flanked by two of his sons, Eric and Donald Jr., entered the arena at Madison Square Garden, prompting a raucous reaction from the crowd. Watching the viral videos of it, posted right away from the smartphones in attendance, you could have understandably mistaken the scene for one of the presidents own clamorous political rallies, but for the low hum of boos mixed in with the ecstatic cheers and gravelly rock music. Not everyone was a fan.

Mr. Trump was, instead, in the role of star guest as he attended a big U.F.C. event. It was a remarkable sight, given that competitions of mixed martial arts were not even legal in New York until 2016.

For the wide group of people on the outside looking in at this cultural phenomenon with furrowed brows, the question of its specific appeal beyond the age-old attraction humans have to combat is common. Five action-packed minutes this past August, before a prime time face-off between Anthony Pettis and the welterweight superstar Nate Diaz (on his hyped return from a three-year hiatus) may provide something like an answer.

Hours before that top card fight, nearly every seat was filled to watch little-known lightweights Khana Worthy and Devonte Smith battle. Both men in the octagon immediately began parrying each others blows, prepared to defend against a combo of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and American wrestling moves, or of karate kicks and boxer-like jabs (or maybe just an improvised knee to the face.)

Just four minutes into the first round, Mr. Worthy landed a punishing left hook beneath Mr. Smiths right ear, who crashed, back-first, onto the canvas. The crowd exploded 17,000-odd people giving a big schoolyard Ooo! at the same time. Mr. Worthy charged at his wounded opponent, who was still on the deck and landed several more punches. Mr. Smith curled up. The referee rushed in to stop the fight and Mr. Worthy, a massive 6-1 underdog according to the gambling bookies, climbed atop the octagon, threw himself over it and toward the rapt crowd in celebration.

It all happened in roughly 10 seconds. An instant jolt and turn of events few other sports can rival. The knockout took place at 9:42 p.m. By 9:43 the U.F.C.s official account had posted a clip to Twitter: WORTHY PULLS OFF THE HUGE UPSET! Other trending posts quickly went up from fans and sponsors as well as peers of the fighters, who often have as many millions of followers as professional football players.

I began following M.M.A. out of professional necessity. I was a boxing writer by trade until editors at outlets, including The Times, began inquiring a few years ago about my interest in covering U.F.C. as it ascended into mainstream acceptability.

Dr. Bhrett McCabe, a sports psychologist, who has worked with mixed martial artists, explained to me the vicarious rush that people of all stripes feel watching U.F.C. matches by recalling one of the first times he took his young teenage daughter, who was not already a hard-core fan, to a fight.

We were three rows back from the cage, and you could hear the fists hitting the chest, and the air leaving the lungs, Dr. McCabe said. And youre sitting there, and its this moment between I dont want to see a broken leg, but I also want to see a victory. Its this weird psychological moment. I look over at my daughter shes 14 at the time and shes over there yelling and screaming.

For fans, theres this idea of there being just enough distance between them and the fighters to provide a guilt-free viewing experience. We watch them through a cage. But theyre also packaged by the franchise on television as well as by themselves on social media as Tekken-esque arcade game characters. The audience gets close, but not too close, to the blood.

Despite the vague conventional wisdom that those who watch U.F.C. are mostly working-class MAGA guys, a fairly diverse group of young men make up the majority of the actual fan base.

You go to a U.F.C. event, you see men, you see women, you see children, said Dr. Jennifer McClearen, a feminism and media scholar at the University of Texas Austin, whose book on women in U.F.C. will debut in spring 2021. You see people who are doctors, and lawyers, and construction workers.

Its a shift that was years in the making. When the Ultimate Fightng Championship was getting its start in the 1990s, it wasnt inaccurate to describe some of its fights as glorified cage matches. There were always rules, Joe Silva, a U.F.C. technical adviser from 1994 to 2000, said in a U.F.C. documentary released this summer. Obviously, in the beginning, there was a lot less.

As active bans on mixed martial arts fighting spread from state to state, some fights were forced to be held in tents. Dana White took over as president of the U.F.C. in the early 2000s under new ownership who understood, as Mr. White put it in the same documentary, that you cant beat the government. You have to work with them and run toward regulation and try to figure out how to make it safer, in order to turn it into a real sport.

The New Jersey Athletic Commission approved the competition soon after renegotiations and U.F.C. 30 (the 30th match in the promotions series) was held on Feb. 23, 2001, at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Dana White still credits that tentpole event which Mr. Trump facilitated as the first domino that led a slew of states to accede to popular demand and legalize regulated mixed martial arts competition over the past two decades.

Im never going to say anything bad about Donald Trump, ever, Mr. White told Fox News last year. That guy gave us our start when nobody would talk to us.

M.M.A. is gory, without question. But clinical research is showing the dangers of M.M.A. arent quite as pronounced as once feared, specifically in relation to boxing. A groundbreaking study first published in 2015 by researchers at the Sather Sports Medicine Clinic at the University of Alberta which examined 1,181 mixed martial artists and 550 boxers over the course of a decade found that boxers are far more susceptible to major harm from concussions and other head trauma and more likely to experience loss of consciousness than M.M.A. fighters, who are instead at greater risk of more minor injuries.

Most of the blood you see in mixed martial arts is from bloody noses or facial cuts, the lead author Dr. Shelby Karpman explained. It doesnt tend to be as severe, but looks a lot worse than it actually is.

In addition to its tactful rule changes, the U.F.C.s reputation of being raw, unlike boxing, and real, unlike W.W.E.-style entertainment wrestling, has allowed it to take full advantage of its openings and competitors vulnerabilities like any good fighter.

For a generation, as premium cable and pay per view became boxings main broadcasters, its popular exposure decreased: A rare canonical fight, between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, in 2015 had a pay per view price tag just shy of $100. Big-name boxers have also shied away from even fights, to preserve their precious undefeated records, whereas there is a widespread duel mentality in M.M.A that publicly shames fighters on top whom repeatedly decline challenges.

The embodiment of this mentality may be Conor McGregor, U.F.C.s most controversial and bankable star, who went as far as fighting boxier Floyd Mayweather in 2017 under strict boxing rules. Mr. McGregor lost that $100 million dollar fight, but his boldness and scintillating style only brought him and U.F.C. more fans. Those fans were out in full force on Jan. 18 in Las Vegas, when Mr. McGregor made a victorious return to the octagon for a prime time bout with Donald Cowboy Cerrone, whom he knocked out in just 40 seconds.

Within hours of the TKO, Mr. Mayweather and several M. M. A fighters issued fresh challenges to Mr. Mcgregor his response? Every one of these little mouth fools can get it!

Not too long ago, the W.W.E. quenched the thirst of those who wanted to watch combat, unleashed from boxings formalities including President Trump, who has starred in some of its story lines. But Mr. Trumps embrace of U.F.C. over both W.W.E. and boxing, which he also patronized, is a signal of whos on top.

Its popularity also appears tied to the very things that made Donald Trump, a bombastic real estate guy who hosted fights, presidential material. The internet has made us all skeptical cynics. And American society coarsened as the economy for working people stagnated. Cheering along to a scripted, predestined contest like W.W.E. might have started to make too many people feel like suckers.

In an era defined by trolling, economic insecurity, social isolation, shortened attention spans and memes like LOL, nothing matters, the U.F.C. has come to the fore, giving its fans the ability to feel and see something real if only for 10 seconds, one knockout at a time.

Joe DePaolo (@joe_depaolo) is a sports journalist and senior editor at Mediaite. His biography of the late boxing champion Arturo Gatti is forthcoming.

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Why UFC Is the First Sport to Return During the Coronavirus - The New York Times