MMA in 2010: Changing of the guard

Mixed martial arts in 2010 was a year for the changing of the guard.

In the three major North American promotions, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the soon-to-be-extinct World Extreme Cagefighting, also and Strikeforce, most of the fighters at the top of the heap fell.

If you go back 12 months, only five champions remain – Anderson Silva as UFC middleweight champion, Georges St. Pierre as welterweight champion, Jose Aldo Jr. as WEC and now UFC featherweight champion, Alistair Overeem as Strikeforce heavyweight champ and Cris "Cyborg" Santos as Strikeforce women’s middleweight champ. And Overeem has only made one title defense in the last three years.

Those who stumbled along the way ranged from the consensus greatest in the sport’s history, Fedor Emelianenko losing for the first time in a decade, to the sport's biggest drawing card, Brock Lesnar. And a person thought to be almost unbeatable in his weight class, B.J. Penn, lost twice to Frankie Edgar, an 8-to-1 underdog in their first fight.

It also appears to be near, if not quite the end of the line for the two biggest stars from when MMA made its television debut in 2005, Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. As the top light heavyweights in UFC and coaches on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter, the two became two of the most popular fighters in the sport’s short history.

Liddell’s career is almost surely over, after being knocked out by Rich Franklin on June 12 in Vancouver, B.C. Couture, 47, has not said he’s retired, but he’s got a couple of movie roles scheduled for the next several months and has had no fights scheduled since his win over boxer James Toney on Aug. 28 in Boston.

But there are, of course, plenty of rising new starts ready to take their turn in the spotlight. Perhaps the most talked about is light heavyweight Jon Jones, who spent barely five minutes in the Octagon in two televised main event wins over Brandon Vera and Vladimir Matyushenko. Jones, a former national junior college champion, heads a list of strongly credentialed wrestlers who moved up the ladder in the UFC including Ryan Bader, Jones’ next opponent, Phil Davis, a 2008 NCAA champion, and soon-to-be UFC debuting Chad Mendes, a 2008 runner-up who is already a top featherweight contender.

Even more former wrestling champions have emerged on top in the young Bellator promotion. Two former NCAA champions, Cole Konrad at heavyweight and Ben Askren at welterweight, captured Bellator titles. Former world Greco-Roman champion, Joe Warren, also won its featherweight title.

The top ten stories of 2010:

10. End of the line for Chuck Liddell: The biggest and most recognizable star of the UFC’s rise to prominance, the Mohawk-topped Chuck Liddell’s career appears to be over. White had announced Liddell’s retirement for him after a 2009 loss to Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, but Liddell wanted back. He had to promise White to give up his legendary partying lifestyle, change up his training and get into shape.

He did all he was asked, but there was no way he could get back his chin. That was the key attribute that made his style of throwing looping counterpunches while walking through opponents’ blows work. At 40, and looking like he was in his best condition in years, Liddell came on strong against Rich Franklin on June 12 in Vancouver. He varied up what had been too predictable of a style, and even broke Franklin’s arm. But he was caught with a shot late in the first round and knocked out, his fifth loss, four by knockout, in his last six fights.

9. Emergence of great athletes and celebrity fighters: A number of top athletes tried their hand at MMA over the past year on major shows, none bigger than Herschel Walker, one of the greatest college football players in history. Walker wanted to be more than just a novelty, and spent months training at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, alongside future UFC champion Cain Velasquez, before debuting as a 47-year-old rookie with a stoppage of unknown Greg Nagy on Jan, 30 in Miami.

The presence of Walker and former pro wrestler Bobby Lashley led to the highest-rated Showtime MMA event of the year. Lashley’s year didn’t end well, as his five-fight win streak ended getting a beating from journeyman Chad Griggs on Aug. 21 in Houston, and, now a free agent, hasn’t signed for a new fight since.

Also debuting were Satoshi Ishii, a celebrity in Japan for winning the gold medal in judo in the 2008 Olympics, winner in three out of four fights, and boxer Toney, who brought a lot of hype but was submitted in short order by Couture.

8. MMA sanctioned in Ontario, New York still in limbo: Getting MMA legal and regulated throughout the world has been one of UFC’s prime goals since Zuffa LLC purchased the company in 2001. It’s been a slow process, but going into 2010, the last two holdouts among major North American cities were New York and Toronto. Legislation, thought to be all but done at one point, stalled in New York. In Ontario, MMA was legalized and a first event is expected to take place in the second quarter of next year at the 60,000-plus seat Rogers Centre, which would be expected to set the North American attendance mark for the sport.

Ontario wasn't the only new ground, as the company debuted in Vancouver, B.C., returned to the Detroit area for the first time during the regulated era, and debuted in Boston.

New York wasn’t the only problem area, as the UFC was banned from television in Germany during the year, and faced heavy media criticism, but still ran a live event in Oberhausen on Nov. 13.

7. Zuffa sells part of company to Middle Eastern investors: On Jan. 11, Dana White announced after eight months of negotiations, the company had sold a 10 percent stake to Flash Entertainment, an arm of the Abu Dhabi government. The purchase price was not revealed but was believed to be well in excess of $100 million. White claimed the sale made sense because it would enable the company to speed up its efforts at international expansion, although at present there has been nothing announced yet in that regard directly related to that deal. Others noted the majority owner Feritta brothers' other main business, Station Casinos, was in bankruptcy and the family needed to put up significant cash to regain control, although Lorenzo Fertitta denied one had anything to do with the other. Currently, Zuffa is owned 41 percent each by Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, 10 percent by Flash and 9 percent by White.

6. Brawl, and bad ratings mire Strikeforce CBS card: The April 17 Strikeforce event from Nashville was probably the most important show of 2010 because of the exposure it would give the promotion. A three-championship fight card that on paper looked to be can’t miss, somehow did. The show had three straight largely dull five-round decisions, followed by an in-ring postfight brawl that led to three-month suspensions for Jake Shields, Jason "Mayhem" Miller and Nick Diaz.

Prior to the card, there was talk of quarterly prime-time network specials for Strikeforce. But disappointing ratings (1.76 rating and 2.86 million viewers in a prime-time slot) and the brawl led to CBS staying away from MMA for the rest of the year. Shields, in the last fight of his contract, upset Dan Henderson to keep his middleweight title, but by the end of the year had signed with UFC. But the worst news of all was the, unacceptable as prime time numbers.

5. Chael Sonnen becomes a major star, nearly beats Anderson Silva, tests positive for steroids: Sonnen spent 13 years in the sport before becoming an "overnight sensation." The former WEC contender beat Nate Marquardt in a top contenders match to earn a fight with Silva, a fight few gave him a shot at winning. But Sonnen did the single greatest job in UFC history of one-man promotion of a fight, which ended up being the most successful Silva title defense on pay-per-view, doing about 600,000 buys.

The fight turned out to be a one-sided shellacking, not unexpected. But it was the heavy underdog, Sonnen, who came in with a 25-10-1 record, who won the first four rounds on Aug. 7 in Oakland, Calif., handily. But Silva caught Sonnen with a triangle armbar at 3:10 of the fifth round to save his championship. Even though he lost, many saw the performance as evidence that Sonnen almost backed up his talk, and he was already announced as getting a rematch.

But his steroid test taken before the fight came up positive, and he was suspended for six months and fined $2,500 by the California State Athletic Commission. Sonnen will be eligible to fight again in March, but he lost his penciled-in rematch with Silva, as Vitor Belfort will get the title shot in February instead.

4. WEC merged into UFC: In a move most saw as inevitable, it was announced on Oct. 28 that the WEC would no longer exist as a separate promotion after its announced Dec. 16 event in Glendale, Ariz. The move meant the featherweight (145 pounds) and bantamweight (135 pounds) weight classes WEC focused on would be moved to the UFC starting with the new year.

The reason the two groups were kept separate over the past several years had to do with UFC’s formerly exclusive television contract with Spike. Once it was worked out for UFC to run live events on Versus, there was no point in using the WEC name, a brand which meant far less to the public than the UFC. Even though the WEC garnered a reputation for putting on the best consistent fight events in the sport, its TV numbers declined for most of the year.

Dominick Cruz was awarded the first-ever UFC bantamweight title on Dec. 16 after defeating Scott Jorgensen in his final WEC title defense. Jose Aldo Jr. was announced as the first UFC featherweight champion. And The final WEC champ, Anthony Pettis, who made his name with his incredible head kick off the cage in his win over Ben Henderson, is expected to get the next UFC lightweight title shot against the winner of the Jan. 1 Edgar-Maynard fight.

3. Lesnar and Penn lose championships: Two of UFC’s three best-drawing champions, Brock Lesnar and B.J. Penn (the third being Georges St. Pierre), dropped their titles in significant upsets. Lesnar was stopped in 4:12 by Cain Velasquez on Oct. 23 in Anaheim, Calif., as he was unable to recover from a multitude of punches on the ground. Lesnar went in as the favorite to the public, but most inside the industry considered Velasquez as the one who would come out on top.

Penn lost the lightweight championship in a close five-round decision on April 10 in Abu Dhabi to Frankie Edgar in one of the bigger title upsets in history. Edgar showed it was no fluke, winning a second decision, this one not nearly as close, on Aug. 28 in Boston. Penn already bounced back, moving up to welterweight with a 21-second knockout over long-time rival Matt Hughes, and faces Jon Fitch next. Lesnar’s future is a lot less clear, as there are no hints as to when he will fight again.

2. Emelianenko loses: With a nearly ten-year unbeaten streak, Fedor Emelianenko took his 32-1 (1 no-contest) record into a battle with Fabricio Werdum on June 26 in San Jose, Calif. It figured to be another Emelianenko win to build for an Emelianenko vs. Overeem title fight on pay-per-view. Instead, Emelianenko threw a punch and Werdum went down, like he was hurt.

But it was really a trap. As Emelianenko went into Werdum’s guard to try and pound him out, he was attacking Werdum at his strongest point. Werdum locked on a triangle choke and armbar combination, and in the time standing still moment of the year, the mythical Russian tapped.

The loss raised the questions of whether Emelianenko was no longer the fighter he once was, how he would compete with the new generation of fighters, or if the loss was simply a fluke. It also raised questions about Werdum, who was knocked out by Junior Dos Santos in the UFC and then cut. There have been no answers. Emelianenko hasn’t fought since, nor does he have another fight lined up. Werdum had elbow surgery, and also has no future match announced.

1. UFC breaks its own pay-per-view record: For the second year in a row, the Ultimate Fighting Championship broke its own record for most sports pay-per-view buys in a given year. With one event left on Dec. 11, headlined by Georges St. Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck, an expected blockbuster, UFC could hit the nine-million mark for the year. They have already become the first promotion in history to crack 1 million on three occasions in a single year – for the May 29 Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans fight, and for Lesnar’s fights with Shane Carwin and Velasquez.

Fighter of the year: This is a tough choice because so many top candidates went 2-0 this year. Of major champions, Frankie Edgar, Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo Jr., Dominick Cruz, Jake Shields, Cris "Cyborg" Santos and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza all fit into this category. Nick Diaz went 3-0, but his victims, K.J. Noons, a past-his-prime Hayato Sakurai and Marius Zaromskis don’t others' resumes.

Edgar’s wins over B.J. Penn are most impressive from a caliber-of-competition standpoint, were the most impressive, but they were both by decision. Aldo Jr. looked as talented as anyone in dominating Urijah Faber and Manvel Gamburyan.

In the end, UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, with two first round TKO finishes, over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Lesnar, the latter in one of the year’s biggest fights, gets the slight nod.

Fight of the year: There were a number of great fights this year across all organizations, including Eddie Alvarez vs. Roger Huerta (Bellator, Oct. 21), Joe Warren vs. Joe Soto (Bellator, Sept. 2), Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin (UFC, July 11) and Jorge Santiago vs. Kazuo Misaki (Sengoku, June 22).

But the standout fights were Leonard Garcia vs. Chan Sung Jung (WEC, April 24), Silva vs. Sonnen, Anthony Pettis vs. Ben Henderson (WEC, December 16) and Chris Leben vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama (UFC, July 11). Garcia vs. Jung was a crazy brawl. Silva vs. Sonnen was more an intense roller-coaster ride of a match where you couldn’t believe what you were seeing, then you thought you were seeing history, just to have the fight finish with a dramatic twist. Henderson vs. Pettis was similar but different, a back-and-forth match where the outcome was always in doubt, right down to the past minute, ending with the most spectacular move of the year, the "Showtime kick," where Pettis jumped, kicked off the fence and landed a kick that nearly knocked Henderson out. Leben vs. Akiyama was like a combination of the two, complete with the shocking ending of Leben getting the submission with a triangle. The post-fight steroid controversy takes something away from Silva vs. Sonnen. I was going to go with Jung vs. Garcia, but the last-minute Henderson vs. Pettis bout takes it, both because it was a great fight, the spectacular finish, and has the added bonus of it being a fight with long-term historical value, as everyone watching will always instantly recall the final match in WEC history.