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Thankfully, we have somehow reached the end of yet another year in MMA. This year, as I compiled the stories and chronicled the histories of the various MMA organizations, and the sport as a whole, one question kept running through my mind: Are we better off at the end of 2023 than when we started? Honestly, I’m not sure. There’s plenty to be made for either side of the argument. Let’s just dive into what happened and see if a strong argument emerges. UFC - Have you heard the good word about Power Slap? Dana White slapped his wife on New Year’s. Technically, it happened in 2022, but the story didn’t break until this year. As a reminder, in case you forgot the sequence of events: she goes to leave the party, Dana grabs her by the wrist to prevent that from happening, initiating the aggressive action. She slaps him, he hits her. The biggest consequence is Young Sheldon reruns preempted the Power Slap show for two weeks before it was moved to the Racism Channel. In other outside the cage news of early 2023, Francis Ngannou had his contract terminated and was stripped of the UFC Heavyweight title after negotiations failed. Chalk up another KO victory for Bureaucratic Bullshit. It’s totally fine and good to kick the reigning champ out the door and flush the lineal Heavyweight title down the toilet, not because Francis wanted too much money for himself, but because he wanted more money for other fighters. Can’t have that. The cogs must never know their importance or value. Another major story of 2023 was UFC’s weird merger with WWE to form TKO, a global entertainment consortium designed to best extract value from both Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia through sportswashing. The last piece of big news was that UFC was dropping USADA’s testing program. The reason? USADA said Conor McGregor would have to wait to fight until after he’d spent the requisite time back in the testing pool with negative tests. This disgusting act of having moral compunction was a bridge too far for UFC to handle. Before the normal rundown of championship outcomes, it’s time to talk about the fighters that called it quits this year. Robbie Lawler was allowed to go out doing what he did best: inflicting horrendous violence upon another man’s skull. Chan Sung Jung finally got his match against Max Holloway, and while it didn’t go his way, he also did what he did best: go out swinging. Glover Texeira hung up the gloves after losing to Jamahal Hill, while Shogun somehow only retired this year as well. Finally, Amanda Nunes beat the hell out of Irene Aldana and retired in her post-fight interview, launching both the Women’s Feather and Bantamweight divisions into the Phantom Zone. Starting off at Heavyweight, things began badly. Francis got stripped and kicked to the curb, then it was announced that Jonathan Dwight Jones would end his three year hiatus with an immediate title shot against Ciryl Gane. Jones effortlessly dumpstered the Frenchman, and while a Stipe Miocic fight was teased, Miocic’s own long absence from the cage would have to wait for another year, as Jones injured himself in training. Fret not, though, fight fans. Jones would not get stripped of the belt or in any way be required to relinquish it. Instead, an interim title fight between Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavolich was made, with Aspinall winning by first round knockout. Of course, Dana quickly cleared things up: there is no plan for a unification bout. Jones and Miocic will meet sometime at the end of 2024, and both guys are probably going to retire afterwards. Aspinall I guess gets to defend an interim belt until he gets promoted to regular champ after the Old Man Scrap of 2024? Light Heavyweight in 2022 was a swamp of chaos. 2023 was supposed to clear things up after injuries and draws and for the UFC, things were looking good at the start of the year. Jamahal Hill beat Glover Texeira for the vacant title in January. The mission has been accomplished, Dana White has birthed a UFC champ from his grotesque loins. A Contender Series winner has tasted UFC gold, and now we are all sons of bitches. Then Hill tore his ACL playing charity basketball and had to give up the belt. Luckily for the UFC, former champ (who never lost his belt in the cage) Jiri Prochazka was available to take on former Middleweight champ (more on that later) Alex Pereira. Now, just seven fights into his promotional career, Pereira is a two weight champ, and he’s either calling for Israel Adesanya to meet him at 205 lbs or he might just jump up to Heavyweight because divisions no longer matter. Oh, hey, speaking of Middleweight. Pereira rematched Adesanya, and Israel finally got his get back, knocking out Pereira in the second round. With no actual challengers available, Izzy made his first defense of reign two against Sean Strickland. Strickland overwhelmed Adesanya with pressure and took the title in a shocking upset. Now, Strickland is set to defend against Dricus du Plesis in a bout that is surely splintering both men’s shared fanbase on StormFront. Welterweight brings us our first notes of stability. Leon Edwards was champ at the start of the year and he ended the year the same way. He took a decision over former champ Kamaru Usman, and despite adamantly declaring the man to be an unworthy title challenger, Leon defended against Colby Covington in the last UFC bout of 2023. Who’s next for “Rocky”? Probably not Belal Muhammad, that’s for sure. Maybe Shavkhat Rakhmanov, unless someone Dana likes more does something cool or despicable. Heading down to Lightweight, otherwise known as the Dagestan Division. Islam Makhachev welcomed Featherweight champ Alex Volkanovski, taking a decision over the squat Australian. A rematch with Charles Oliveira at the end of the year was scrapped, and on short notice, Volkanovski took another crack at Islam. Makhachev won by first round KO. Is Oliveira next? Will it be Justin Gaethje, fresh off winning the new incarnation of the Bad Mother Fucker title? Or is Islam going up in weight to fight Leon Edwards? It’s probably the last one, right? Because of his jaunts up to 155 lbs, Volkanovski only had time to pummel one man in a Featherweight title defense. Yair Rodriguez captured the interim title over Josh Emmett on the same night Volk and Islam first clashed. Then Alex punched Yair in the face and torso repeatedly a few months later. Ilia Topuria is next on Volkanovski’s dance card, but a lot of people really want Alex to take some more time off to let his brain recover. We move on to Bantamweight, where things are very stupid. Aljamain Sterling, having defended against the one-armed TJ Dillashaw in 2022, met the newly un-retired Henry Cejudo. Aljo won a split decision and was booked against Sean O’Malley before he even left the cage. O’Malley won by second round TKO, and now there is a second Contender Series guy who is UFC champion. Whole poo poo’s hosed. Merab Dvalishvili should be next in line, what with his division-best 9-fight win streak, but that doesn’t work for Dana. Instead, O’Malley finally gets his rematch against Marlon Vera. Hey, at least both guys are staying at 135 lbs! Flyweight saw renewal in 2023. Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figureido met for the fourth time, with Moreno taking a TKO victory. Finally, Deiveson had to wait for a title shot, as Moreno next faced Alexandre Pantoja, with Pantoja taking a split decision win. Somehow, this didn’t necessitate an immediate rematch, which is apparently something UFC can just do when a champ loses. Sounds weird, right? Anyway, Pantoja defended against Brandon Royval, taking a clear-cut decision win at the end of the year. What’s next? I don’t know, probably Muhammad Mokaev, he’s undefeated and Pantoja hasn’t said anything about moving up in weight. Women’s Featherweight continued to not exist in 2023’s title world. At Women’s Bantamweight, Amanda Nunes beat the tar out of Irene Aldana and then retired. The vacant title will be contested between Raquel Pennington and Mayra Bueno Silva in January. The long nightmare that was Valentina Shevchenko’s Women’s Flyweight title reign finally ended in 2023. Alexa Grasso made “Bullet” finally pay for her continued use of ill-advised spinning poo poo, jumping on Valentina’s back and submitting her via face crank. Of course, an immediate rematch was booked. That bout ended in a split draw, angering all the horny Val-Perverts. Next up is probably the rematch to the rematch, pending Valentina not getting injured. At Strawweight, Zhang Weili beat up Amanda Lemos in a fight I forgot happened until I started doing research for this write up. Maybe Tatiana Suarez is next. So, back to the original question: Is UFC better now than at the start of the year? We’ve got champs ignoring the divisions they are title holders in, fighters saying horrible poo poo with zero consequence, and every fight card is 90% Contender Series fighters who only know how to Swang n Bang, while the events themselves are just prolonged commercials for Power Slap. The upper echelons of the divisions showcase some of the best fighters on the planet, but so many fights feel inconsequential with the same three or four people at the top of the division cycling through title shots while everyone outside that inner circle just spins their wheels. Bellator - Gone Out of Business Sale Bellator closed up shop this year. Well, technically, it got purchased by another company with the proclamation that it would be kept around in a zombie-like state to show off the champs on eight Major Shows to be held in various Global Mega-Cities. So, ultimately, Bellator is worse off now than when 2023 started. At Heavyweight, Ryan Bader retired Fedor by first round TKO in the division’s only title defense. Bader was supposed to defend against Linton Vassell to finish the year, but that fell apart at the last minute. Vadim Nemkov also had a single title defense in 2023, winning a decision over Yoel Romero in a terrible fight that featured negative amounts of action in most rounds. Nemkov spoke of going up in weight to avenge Fedor, but it’s likely he’ll have to fight Impa Kasanganay first. Middleweight saw Johnny Eblen establish himself as a legitimate champion with defenses over Anatoly Tokov and Fabian Edwards. Can a man as unassuming as Eblen become a MMA superstar in the modern era through sheer dint of his fighting prowess? Most assuredly not, but he’s still pretty good and it will be interesting to see what happens next since he doesn’t have a dance partner in the PFL. Maybe he’ll fight Gegard Mousasi again. The exiled Welterweight champ, Yaroslav Amosov returned from Ukraine to face interim champ Logan Storley. Amosov took a wide decision, cementing himself as the best 170 pounder in Bellator. Then he faced Jason “The rear end-Kicking Machine” Jackson at the end of the year and he got his rear end kicked. Jackson defended takedowns and punished Amosov with uppercuts, winning by third round KO. Next for Jackson looks to be a champ vs champ matchup with PFL’s Magomed Magomedkerimov. Lightweight played host to the latest Grand Prix. Champ Usman Nurmagomedov defended against Benson Henderson, submitting the former UFC champ in the first round. Brent Primus took out Mansour Barnoui by decision, Alexandr Shabily scored an upset TKO over Tofiq Musayev, and Patricky Pitbull knocked out Roberto Souza, who replaced AJ McKee. In the semi-finals, Shabily outpointed Pitbull, and Usman originally won a decision of his own over Primus, but that bout was turned into a No Contest when Nurmagomedov failed a test for a banned substance. Apparently it wasn’t banned enough to warrant Usman getting stripped of the title or even knocked out of the tournament. Will the Grand Prix finish in 2024? Will Usman compete in the Finals? Nobody knows! Patricio Pitbull was Featherweight champ for all of 2023 by sheer virtue of never being booked in a fight at 145 lbs. Instead, Pitbull attempted to secure champ-champ status at Bantamweight, and when that didn’t work, he filled in on short notice at Rizin in a 154 lb Catchweight bout. He got knocked out in one round. Presumably Patricio will face PFL’s Jesus Pinedo in early 2024, unless he takes a fight at 185 lbs in the next few weeks. Bantamweight finally finished up their Grand Prix in 2023. Interim Champ Raufeon Stots faced Patchy Mix in the Finals, with Mix winning by KO in 80 seconds. Sergio Pettis then welcomed Patricio Pitbull in a Regular title defense, with Yung Serj scoring a decision victory. Finally, we got to the fireworks factory, as Mix took on Pettis. It took Mix under eight minutes to out grapple and submit Pettis. PFL doesn’t have a Bantamweight division for Mix to challenge, but Rizin does, and I would be All For It. Bellator tried to create a Flyweight world title, with Kyoji Horiguchi taking on Makoto Takahashi, but that fight ended in a No Contest just 25 second in to the contest after an inadvertent eye poke. What a cursed existence Kyoji Horiguchi has lived these last few months. Like 2022, 2023 saw Cris Cyborg emerge from the shadows to beat the dogshit out of another lady and then vanish again. This time, she did it to Cat Zingano in just over four minutes. Will she fight Larissa Pacheco or Kayla Harrison next? Or is she just going to parachute into Rio and attempt a coup to install Bolsonaro? Down at Women’s Flyweight, Liz Carmouche’s run of dominance continued, with two weird asterisks. She fought and defeated DeAnna Bennett and Ilima-Lei Macfarlane, but both opponents missed weight, rendering them unable to compete for the title. Because she’s the ultimate competitor, Carmouche opted to put the title on the line anyway, so she would either retain or the belt would become vacant. Liz Carmouche doesn’t care about playing it safe, she just wants to wallop people. Sadly, her next wallop victim has not yet emerged, since PFL doesn’t run Women’s Flyweight. It’s really hosed up that Bellator’s future is so uncertain. Their champions are pretty solid, for a B-League, at least. Hell, even the top 10 for Bantamweight through Lightweight is good. They’re even trying to establish Women’s Featherweight, though nobody really has a hope of beating Cyborg. PFL - Now With 50% More Shane Burgos The Professional Fighters League had a big 2023. Thanks to Saudi money, they made some huge moves. They allegedly signed Jake Paul, though he has not had a fight announced, they allegedly signed Francis Ngannou, and he also has not had a MMA fight announced for PFL. They also purchased Bellator and are putting together a Champion versus Champion card for early 2024. Heavyweight saw Extremely Large Punching Man Renan Ferreira finally capture gold. He is I guess going to fight Ryan Bader. Better work on that takedown defense, bud! Light Heavyweight was won by Impa Kasanganay, who proved that even if you are on the wrong end of a viral KO, you can still win a big $1 Million cardboard check. Impa should be facing Vadim Nemkov next. Magomed Magomedkerimov submitted 2022 champ Sadibou Sy to capture his second PFL Tournament title. His next challenge is Jason Jackson. Lightweight saw another repeat champ, as Olivier Aubin-Mercier took home the 2023 gold, same as he did in 2022. His next challenge is finding a hobby, as OAM retired after winning the title. Jesus Pinedo was probably not on anyone’s radar at the start of 2023, but he won both Playoff bouts by TKO, winning the Featherweight championship. Assuming he’s not going to fight at Middleweight or something silly, Patricio Pitbull should be next for Pinedo. Larissa Pacheco won her second title, this time at Featherweight. Shockingly, she won this one by decision and didn’t simply punch her opponent out in 35 seconds. If we believe PFL kingpin Donn Davis, and why would anyone ever doubt the veracity of an MMA organization’s leadership, Pacheco will be facing Cris Cyborg. PFL is pretty easy to talk about most of the time. Fighters fight in the regular season, accumulate points, move on to the Playoffs and then the Tournament Finals. It’s all extremely cut and dry. There was some fuckery this year, though. At PFL 6, Shane Burgos was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs after his decision win. He had only garnered 3 points, while Natan Schulte had scored 6 with his pair of wins, the latter coming on the prelims of PFL 6 against his best friend, Raush Manfio. Apparently there wasn’t enough violence in the Schulte/Manfio bout, both fighters were suspended, knocking Schulte out of the playoffs and allowing Burgos, PFL’s big free agent signing, another chance. Everyone thought it was a real gross move by PFL, but it’s not like they reversed the decision. At the end of 2023, PFL might be better, since they potentially have a larger Bellator-based talent pool to draw from. There’s also the gimmickry in their back pocket of a Jake Paul MMA bout, plus the rumor of Francis Ngannou versus Deontay Wilder lurking in the distance. Invicta FC - Please, Just Let Us Develop Some Talent Invicta only ran four events this year, with just five title fights. At Bantamweight, Talita Bernardo took the title from Taneisha Tennant in January, and shockingly, Bernardo has not vacated the belt to sign elsewhere. On the same card, Ketlen Souza won the vacant Flyweight belt in a fight with Kristina Williams. Souza then dropped the title in May to sign with the UFC. March saw Valesca Machado defend the Strawweight belt, losing a decision to Danni McCormack. Danni later successfully defended the title against Karolina Wojcik in October. Despite being Irish, the UFC has yet to poach her from Invicta. The Atomweight title changed hands in May, as Jillian DeCoursey lost to Rayanne dos Santos. Rayanne then left for the UFC, despite there being no 105 lb division. Invicta is kind of stagnant compared to 2022. They have two (three if you count Featherweight, but that’s been vacant for two years) divisions without a champ, but they did see three titles change hands inside the cage in 2023, which is pretty solid. Maybe Bernardo and McCormack can continue to prove themselves, but of course it’s probably a matter of time before they leave, because that is Invicta’s fate. ONE Championship - I Am Contractually Prohibited From Saying Anything Negative In a move nobody saw coming, ONE created the best thing in combat sports for 2023, Friday Fights. Forty-six events to kickstart the weekend with mostly Muay Thai and kickboxing bouts for free on YouTube. ONE Friday Fights was must-watch and if you missed it, you could pull up a replay and see everything in about 45 minutes. It was fantastic! ONE’s actual MMA side of things was a little lacking in 2023. They had more Submission Grappling title fights than MMA this year. Granted, that tally is six to five, and of those six Grappling bouts, three just saw Mikey Muscumeci shredding the leg joints of an overmatched MMA guy. However, in MMA, only two title fights featured a current champion defending their title. Let’s just do the rundown real quick. Arjan Bhullar, who won the Heavyweight belt in 2021, finally got back in the cage against Interim Champ, Anatoly Malykhin, with Malykhin winning by third round TKO. Thanh Le took on Ilya Freymanov for the Interim Featherweight title after a rematch with regular champ Tang Kai fell through when Kai got injured. Le submitted Freymanov in just over one minute. Fabricio Andrade rematched John Lineker for the vacant Bantamweight championship and this time there was no nutsack destruction, as Andrade won by fourth round corner stoppage. Demetrious Johnson defended his Flyweight belt against Adriano Moraes, taking a decision win. Stamp Fairtex and Seo Hee Ham faced off for the vacant Atomweight belt, with Stamp winning by third round TKO. That Atomweight title fight was a little awkward, as the belt was only officially made vacant like ten minutes before the contest when Angela Lee announced her retirement. There were also around 20 title fights in ONE’s Kickboxing and Muay Thai ranks, and I’m just going to say that kickboxing and Muay Thai are real cool, except when it’s an MMA person that isn’t even close to being a great MMA striker. Then it’s less cool but the outcome is usually super cool. In non-fight news, ONE has taken some hits this year. Information from old contracts came to light, showing that an athlete signed to ONE gives up basically all their rights to the organization, they aren’t allowed to criticize ONE (Even after the contract ends), any disputes must be handled by arbitration in Singapore, and best (worst?) of all, fighter accommodations are limited to one hotel room with twin beds for the fighter and one coach. Then there’s the rumor that ONE’s financial backers are getting tired of being jerked around by Chatri and want to see some kind of actual return on their investment. Maybe that’s why ONE is apparently going to refocus on MMA in 2024. I guess that would be cool, but I think I just want to watch more Friday Fights because Muay Thai and kickboxing rule. Rizin - The Cup Noodle Man Abides Rizin made history in 2023. Granted, it was just for finally holding an event outside of Japan, with Rizin Landmark 7 in Azerbaijan, but hey, small steps lead to bigger strides. As is longstanding Japanese MMA tradition, there were very few title fights this year in Rizin Fighting Federation. Lightweight champ Roberto de Souza faced Spike Carlyle in a non-title bout, winning a decision, then had another non-title bout as he entered the Bellator Grand Prix, losing to Patricky Pitbull by leg kick TKO (What kind of poltroon cannot defend low kicks?) Kleber Koike Erbst was supposed to defend the Featherweight title against Chihiro Suzuki, but Erbst missed weight, losing the title on the scale. Though Erbst won the fight by armbar, it was overturned to a No Contest and he was not included in the next bout to crown a new champ. That honor went to Vugar Karamov and Mikuru Asakura, with Karamov winning by rear naked choke. Eager to showcase the new champ in their Azerbaijan debut, Rizin had Vugar defend against Chihiro Suzuki. Fresh off a knockout win over Patricio Pitbull, Chihiro used the boost in confidence and momentum to knock out Vugar by upkick and punches. After Kyoji Horiguchi beat up Hiromasa Ougikubo in 2022, he dropped the Bantamweight title to compete full time at Flyweight. With a vacant belt, Ougikubo stepped in to face Juan Archuleta, with Juan winning. Archuleta was going to defend the title at Rizin’s New Year’s Eve show, but he blew his weight cut by six pounds, becoming the second Rizin fighter to lose a title to the scale. Good job, Juan. Despite this, Kai Asakura was still eligible to win the title, and that’s exactly what he did, knocking out Archuleta in the second round. Speaking of Flyweights and also the traditional NYE show, Kyoji Horiguchi took on Makoto Shinryu for the inaugural Flyweight belt. Horiguchi took home the title with a second round submission win. He also proposed to his girlfriend and she said yes. It was very adorable. Finally, the Super Atomweight title actually saw some action as Seika Izawa defended the belt at Super Rizin 2. She then had a non-title bout for New Year’s Eve for Miyuu Yamamoto’s retirement fight, defeating the 49-year old Yamamoto in the second round. Is Rizin doing better now than the start of 2023? Making one trip outside of Japan is a nice start. Sakikabara also announced that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are going to have their entirely unanticipated rematch in Rizin in 2024, so I guess 2023 put them in a position to make that fight happen. Final Thoughts What is the overall health of the sport of MMA at the completion of 2023? Not great! Bellator is gone, ONE might be in dire financial straits, and Invicta always feels like it is just limping along from one event to the next. I want all of the organizations to stick around because more opportunities for fighters is better. UFC is clearly doing well, and PFL has the appearance of success, but that sometimes feels like smoke and mirrors. Is Jake Paul’s MMA debut going to pop a huge PPV buyrate? Is Francis Ngannou fighting Chase Sherman moving any kind of needle? Will the continued existence of Shane Burgos become the monetary windfall that will help Donn Davis save the Bud Light Celly Station Rec Center? We’ll have to see how things play out over the next twelve months.
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Jan 1, 2024 19:12
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Thanks for the great write-up, LobsterMobster, seeing it all laid out like this is kinda crazy, it feels like 3-4 years worth of craziness was packed into a single year. In the interest of being positive, at least Nunes went out on a high, and though Korean Zombie lost he at least got that beautiful send-off from the crowd.
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Jan 2, 2024 09:45
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Jerusalem posted:Thanks for the great write-up, LobsterMobster, seeing it all laid out like this is kinda crazy, it feels like 3-4 years worth of craziness was packed into a single year. In the interest of being positive, at least Nunes went out on a high, and though Korean Zombie lost he at least got that beautiful send-off from the crowd. a+ write-up, agreed. and "losing while being adored by the fans" is the TKZ way, and he will be missed
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Jan 2, 2024 22:58
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jesus. a year is a long time when you put it like that. recently the years have just been exploding in and out of existence. amazing work from one of mma's finest scholars
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Jan 3, 2024 00:40
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I haven't followed mma in years but this was a nice writeup thank you
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Jan 3, 2024 23:27
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