MMA's Opportunities Are Opening Up

TKO and the UFC announced a significant new venture this week. Their priorities seem to be moving away MMA while the rest of the combat sports sphere seems to be playing two steps ahead. If you want to learn how the lay of the fighting land is shifting read this.

Now let’s get into it.

We got the latest edition of TKO’s pet project this week. UFC BJJ 8.

One of the featured bouts had the older brother of their 170 pound champion, Andrew Tackett. Austin’s William Tackett took on San Antonio’s Manuel “Riba” Ribamar.

Riba has won the IBJJF European, Pan American, and No Gi World Championships. He won Worlds at brown belt as well. A real, if you know, you know typa guy.

William had dictated the pace of much of the first round. With 20 seconds left he went back to the time honored tradition of fuck-it-try-a-leg-lock.

This wasn’t the only outside heel hook we got this event. The main event’s Mikey Musumeci brutalized another man’s leg.

I know what you’re thinking. Two more heel hooks in jiujitsu. Who cares?

If you want to understand the highest levels of leg locking you should!

These heel hooks show us how the modern jiujitsu game is responding to better and better leg lock defenses. Both men used a reverse figure 4 grip to finish the submission.

What is the reverse figure 4 grip? First let’s look at a standard outside heel hook from one of my favorite finishes ever in professional MMA.

This is a standard outside heel hook grip Tonon’s near arm is holding the heel tight to his torso. You might notice that only the toes are secured to his chest. That means Nakahara could potentially find room to turn out of the submission.

Now let’s look at UFC BJJ’s two reverse figure 4 grip finishes to see the differences from Tonon’s.

Now let’s take a look at Mikey’s finish.

These reverse figure 4 grips offer 2 main benefits:

UFC BJJ gets a lot of hate. Some of it doesn’t make sense.

I love the octobowl that the athletes compete in. It keeps the action moving and removes the ref from many of the exchanges. More importantly, more opportunities for more athletes to make more money is a good thing. It’s awesome that we get to see the highest level grapplers and their innovations for free on a big stage.

The problem is that UFC BJJ doesn’t have anyone active in jiujitsu commentating. That makes some of the play-by-play announcing confusing. And the matchmaking is egregiously bad at times.

Mikey Musumeci is currently the number 1 ranked grappler at 135. Kevin Dantzler isn’t even ranked in the top 15. Worse, UFC BJJ employs another athlete ranked above Dantzler at 135!

Everyone wants to see Mikey take on Diogo “Baby Shark” Reis or Diego “Pato” Oliveira. Mikey says he’s too small for them.

It’s true that Mikey can compete lower than them. But all three of them have won major IBJJF events at 64KG and Mikey is taller than both Baby Shark and Pato.

The biggest issue facing UFC BJJ is that they approach it as a vehicle to create cash flow and not a sport to grow.

The UFC’s parent company is not in the business of building brands, sports, nor athletes. They’re focused on finalization.

The UFC announced plans to throw UFC BJJ Opens tournaments during UFC BJJ 8.

Starting in August, anyone can enter these open tournaments. They have a second date planned for Phoenix in September so it looks like they’re taking it seriously. I just can’t help but find the premise funny.

When you look at the ufccbjjopens.com you’ll see various bullet points explaining their decision to hold amateur events, namely, “Pathway to UFC BJJ: Champions compete to earn the right to UFC BJJ”.

The UFC is going to get people to pay to compete for them so those same people can earn the right to compete for them professionally so the UFC can create content to sell ad space off of.

It’s like an internship where you pay to work for the company.

This news comes a few months after their announcement that they’re going to start selling instructionals and hosting seminars around the world.

They didn’t start a BJJ promotion to promote the sport. They want acquire athletes in a sport that they can monetize. Don’t take my word for it.

Former UFC title challenger Claudia Gadelha, aka the UFC’s Director of Business Development and the UFC BJJ Senior Director of Jiu-Jitsu Strategy & Business Development, said the goal of the UFC’s goal is, “to create multiple revenue streams for contracted athletes beyond competition pay and to bring UFC’s marketing infrastructure to bear on content monetization.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great the UFC is providing additional ways to make money. I just can’t take this announcement as altruistic when the company making said announcement is literally in the middle of multiple class action lawsuits.

UFC’s CEO Dana White and CBO Hunter Campbell took their weekend off to attend the freakshow known as Brand Risk Promotions. Brand Risk is run by streamer Adin Ross. Their 14th installment featured premier athletes Michael Beasly, Lance Stephenson, and Johnny Manziel. It also featured Ray J, Supa Hot Fire, and a guy who podcasts (?) Bob Menery.

While White and Campbell were laughing and seeking new ways to squeeze cash out of fighting related shitshows, the rest of the combat sports sphere announced their intentions to keep the sport moving.

Last week’s MMA card on Netflix was literally the most well viewed fight card ever in the US, DAZN hosted Oleksandr Usyk fighting Rico Verhoeven in front of the Great Pyramids of Giza, and Scott Coker emerged from retirement to announce he raised more than $60M to launch a new global MMA league.

The events will start in January with a giant tournament to build stars in one particular weight class. They plan to host 12 events in 2027 before scaling to 18 and 22 in 2028 and 2029.

Hosting tournaments is a bad idea. They sound cool until the attraction everyone wants to see gets injured and the whole thing falls into who's-fighting-for-best-of-what’s-left? But I’m not going to kick anyone when they’re trying. Especially not while the heads of MMA’s largest promotion are laughing at people pretending to take fighting seriously.

The timing of the announcements can’t be serendipitous.

The UFC is facing an antitrust lawsuit which seeks injunctive relief, not monetary compensation. This would give fighters more favorable contracts that allow them to move between promotions more easily. That means the UFC would have to negotiate with athletes more frequently, risk losing them to free agency, and more promoters could access more premium talent.

Now here’s the kicker. Because the lawsuit seeks injunctive relief, there is no jury in this trial. Only a judge. And it’s the same judge that already sided with the fighters in the UFC’s last antitrust trial.

That has to sound like a promising opportunity for more than me. Here’s the problem.

If the sport does split open and more organizations promote more good fights, how are we going to watch them?

It’s easy to be a UFC viewer. Their BJJ events are free on Youtube, Paramount+ has been a flawless affordable viewing experience for me, and Fight Pass still holds up great.

The UFC made consumption easy and convenience always wins. Plus they have the capital to fight the fight for as long as they want.

That means the sport’s growth is in our hands. The people that want to see MMA continue to grow and put on awesome events need to keep tuning in to the events outside of the UFC so more executives see MMA as a thing to give resources to. If not, the UFC is going to keep phoning it in until the whole thing bottoms out.

There was literally a boxing event in front of the Pyramids of Giza this weekend! People are wiling to put time and money into major spectacles. We need to vote with our eyes, and dollars, so those executives see theses major spectacles as worthwhile investments.

Rousimar Palhares was a terrifying force when he entered the UFC. He debuted by nearly snapping off fellow Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Ivan Salaverry’s arm. His next two submission wins were violent, fast leg locks.

Palhares had the rare ability to pull himself into leg lock attempts that many couldn’t see.

But created Palhares’s double edged sword. He would sell out on submissions he thought he had. He lived by his leg locks, and got knocked out trying for them too.

In the latest article on the Help Desk we review what made his leg locks work and fail.