Trading Shots: What did we learn in 2015?

Ronda Rousey

In this week’s Trading Shots, retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes joins MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes to look at some lessons learned in a tumultuous year of MMA.

Downes: 2015 is coming to a close, Ben. That means we’ve had a full year of Trading Shots. While I’d love to do a Top 10 list of “Ben’s Most Curmudgeonly Takes” or something similar, the thought of that makes me tired and sad.

As you look back on the past year, have you learned anything new? Was 2015 like any other year, or have you discovered something different about the sport of mixed martial arts?

Fowlkes: I think when we look back on it we’ll be tempted to remember 2015 as the year of the upset, or at least as the year of the falling champions. We end this year with a very different crop of UFC champs than what we started with, which made for a lot of fun twists and turns along the way.

But what I learned, or maybe re-learned, is that MMA is a star-driven sport, perhaps more than any other. It seems we drifted away from that in years past. There were times when we got too caught up thinking about one organization over another, or when competing promotions tried to push the brand instead of specific fighters.

But the rise of Conor McGregor and the mainstream explosion of Ronda Rousey reminded me of something I hadn’t thought much about since the Brock Lesnar era, which is that MMA is all about the power of the individual. There might be a small contingent of hardcore fans willing to watch almost anyone fight in almost any promotion, in any time zone, but you need stars to get the big audiences and the big paydays. Three letters stamped on the cage can’t do that all by itself.

How about you, Danny? Did you learn anything while searching for just the right esoteric reference with which to flavor your UFC Saskatoon prediction column?

Downes: I think I feel a lot like John Neilson Lake when the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railroad and Steamboat Company reached Saskatoon in 1890. In other words, we’re in a boom period.

As we decried the fall of the last generation of stars like Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre, a new crop arose. Sage Northcutt may not be embraced by the hardcore fans, and he may not even pan out as a star. But there is a lot of young talent continuing to take up MMA. Certain divisions may have more depth than others, but the cupboard is not bare. The demise of the sport (and the UFC specifically) have been greatly exaggerated.

I’m still a bit skeptical about MMA’s capacity to become truly mainstream (no matter what’s in our DNA), but it’s made a lot of strides this past year. Can it maintain this momentum if the Rousey star burns out? That’s something that we might learn in 2016.

Besides the stars of the sport, I also learned that 2015 could be a watershed moment for the rank-and-file fighters. They may not have the tangible gains of the Rouseys and McGregors of the world, but there finally seems to be signs of discontent with the status quo. Yes, the Reebok deal has been less than ideal, but it’s mobilized fighters who otherwise would have sat on the sidelines. Add that to the emerging trend of fighters opting for free agency, this year could be a historic one for the majority of fighters out there.

I know optimism isn’t really your thing, but do you think things are heading in the right direction? MMA may not be perfect, but is this the year we learned that it’s not going anywhere?

Fowlkes: In some ways, I think it might be the year we learned what MMA really is. There’s always this urge to compare it to other sports with leagues and teams and decades of tradition. But MMA is different. It’s as much a show as it is a sport. It’s a great big traveling carnival, with a constant need to lure paying customers into the tent.

Oddly, it was Bellator that made this point most forcefully in 2015. Even though we all know that Bellator doesn’t, on the whole, have the best or most relevant fighters, it still consistently found ways to get our attention. It embraced the carnival. It gave us fights that didn’t strictly matter, but that were too weird not to watch. It taught us that there are lots of ways to put on a show, and we kept tuning in and proving it right.

Downes: True, there are many paths up the proverbial mountain. And once there, you’ll hand over your money. MMA may be different from more “mainstream” sports, but it has the same levels of discourse. Whether it’s fans or the so-called media, we alternate between panic and irrational exuberance.

Right now the pendulum has swung to the other end, but it’ll only take a couple injuries or drug test failures to move back to the other extreme. We’ll mythologize the rise of McGregor and embellish the fall of Rousey, but it’s important to remember that, for now, things are strong. But then again, maybe you should ask my opinion on it next week.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.