The complaint coming from many is that the UFC isn’t what it used to be—and there’s some truth to that.
Some of the noise is coming from MMA media personalities who, frankly, don’t like Dana White, and a lot of it is nonsense. The UFC is going through a talent transition. Older stars are retiring or moving on, and new stars are slowly emerging.
Here’s a great example: look at the number of NFL stars who played during the Peyton Manning/Tom Brady era. The talent pool was stacked. You had the Baltimore Ravens defense led by Ray Lewis and company, the New England Patriots dynasty, Marvin Harrison, “Big” Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers—I mean, you could go on and on. That list is significantly smaller today, but football is so good that it doesn’t hurt the sport. The UFC, unfortunately, doesn’t enjoy that same luxury.
Look—Israel Adesanya is on his way out, Alexander Volkanovski might have a couple more title defenses in him, Dustin Poirier is retiring, Max Holloway is probably not far behind, and Justin Gaethje might have one last run left. On top of that, the current belt holders aren’t that memorable. Islam Makhachev is absolutely phenomenal, but he fights once a year, and by the time he shows up again, people forget he even exists. There was more buzz around the potential Paddy Pimblett vs. Michael Chandler fight than there was for Islam’s last title defense.
And then there’s the Jon Jones and Conor McGregor saga—it’s like watching a 50-year-old guy who played college football relive the glory days during an NFL game, thinking, “I can still do that.”
No, you can’t.
Conor’s leg is a wreck, and who knows what Jon Jones is even doing anymore—so stop living in the past.
Dana needs to move on and start curating new stars again.
Also, some UFC superstars need to realize this isn’t the NFL or the NBA. You don’t have that kind of clout to play games with your career—because you’re just not that famous.
So fighters need to fight, and Dana needs to run the dang organization.
Great—now I sound like Bill Belichick.
