2024 appears to be like to be an attention-grabbing 12 months throughout the globe for combined martial arts (MMA).
Final Preventing Championship (UFC) will proceed trucking onward as the game’s large and premier promotion for so far as the rapid future can see. In the meantime, different notable organizations, Skilled Fighters League (PFL) and Bellator, have joined forces with the latter acquired by the previous in late 2023.
Regardless of UFC title fights delivering huge upsets and shock moments this previous 12 months, there was some loud criticism of the expertise general on the roster. UFC 297, the primary pay-per-view (PPV) occasion of the 12 months, noticed two champions topped in fights that obtained combined reactions. One-time UFC Welterweight title challenger and commentator, Dan Hardy, believes there might be a number of the explanation why a decline could also be evident.
“I really feel like combined martial arts is probably affected by a lull in the mean time,” Hardy stated on his YouTube channel. “A little bit of a dip in technical skill throughout the board. There are some fighters definitely that stand out as being wonderful nonetheless. I don’t know whether or not it’s fighter pay having a knock-on impact. I don’t know whether or not the teaching is simply not being handed down from one era to a different. I don’t know whether or not the precise cash going into — there are a number of fighters that attempt to increase cash for his or her coaching camps and stuff. I don’t know whether or not that’s part of it, however for me, the place combined martial arts ought to be proper now and the expansion of combined martial arts and the expansion of the cash coming in, we must always now be beginning to see some much more elite stage athletes that are available with elite stage conditioning able to carry out in an elite approach.”
Hardy, 41, has teased a return to motion quite a few occasions through the years since his final combat in opposition to Amir Sadollah in September 2012. “The Outlaw’s” well-known title problem got here in opposition to the all-time nice, Georges St-Pierre, at UFC 111 when he misplaced a unanimous determination in March 2010.
When scanning the divisions in 2024, bringing the best of all-time debate into issues supplied some extra readability, stated Hardy.
“Is there a division proper now that has the all-time champion in it?” Hardy requested. “Doubtlessly [Lightweight]. Usually, I’d say the lighter divisions are very aggressive in comparison with the heavier divisions. I really feel like they’ve sporadic contenders within the heavier divisions whereas within the lighter divisions, I feel as a result of there’s extra fighters in them usually the world over, the filtration course of to get to the highest of these divisions is far larger.
“Light-weight, you would combat 5 Lightweights in Europe or 5 Lightweights in Japan and 5 Lightweights in Australia, and also you’re gonna discover a killer in each single a type of teams,” he continued. “You may not be capable of say the identical factor about ladies’s Bantamweight, for instance. Or males’s Middleweight, which for no matter cause is one other skinny weight class.”
