COVID-19 knocked MMA down – but not out – in 2020, a year like no other | Opinion

Mixed martial arts got off to a roaring start in 2020.

Conor McGregor made a triumphant return and stopped Donald Cerrone in under a minute in the first UFC pay-per-view of the year Jan. 18. Cris Cyborg made history on Jan. 25 when she defeated Julia Budd to claim the Bellator women’s featherweight championship, making her the first person to hold titles in four major organizations. Jon Jones narrowly retained his light heavyweight title over Dominick Reyes at UFC 247 on Feb. 8 in a barnburner of a battle.

It seemed like things would only get better as the calendar turned toward spring. UFC 248 was on March 7. While it was the co-feature to Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero, Zhang Weili’s strawweight title defense against Joanna Jedrzejczyk figured to be sensational.

I happened to have a rare fight night off that evening, as a friend was visiting Los Angeles from out of town. We spent the day cycling along the north San Diego County coast, but I wasn’t about to miss Zhang vs. Joanna.

This was right around the time coronavirus was starting to take hold of the public’s consciousness. People were washing their hands more often and using sanitizer, but scenes of lockdowns in Wuhan and Milan still seemed like something that happens somewhere else – not here in America. I watched UFC 248 on my phone at a brewpub and couldn’t help but notice the place was only about half full when it would normally be standing-room only on a Saturday night.

My friend drove us home, with noticeably less traffic than you’d usually find heading into L.A., as I watched Zhang-Joanna unfold on my phone. With a couple beers in me, I found myself oohing and ahhing and yelling at my phone as just the most incredible battle unfolded, two warriors throwing down for 25 minutes, a next-level display of equal parts technique and hearts, the greatest women’s MMA fight of all time, and this writer’s choice for “Fight of the Year.”

Who could possibly have known, as Weili soaked in the crowd’s admiration at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, that as her hand was raised for the split decision victory, this all-time great fight also marked the de facto end of “The Before Times” in MMA? In all of sports, really.

Not UFC president Dana White, for one, who blithely insisted he “didn’t give a sh*t” about the coronavirus in a post-fight interview.

Fast forward nearly 10 months later, and you know the story. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, you still can’t buy a ticket to a fight or to most sporting events, much less watch them in bars with people from outside your household. The U.S. is going on 340,000 deaths as the year comes to a close. Distribution of the COVID vaccine is starting to ramp up, but under the rosiest scenarios, it’s looking like at least next summer before life returns to something that resembles normal.

What transpired between then and now was in many ways the most memorable year in the sport’s short history, as MMA adapted to unprecedented challenges.

The sports world shut down just days after UFC 248. The NBA suspended its season on March 11, and nearly every major sports entity followed suit soon thereafter, so much so that Bellator seemed to be lagging when they waited until the day of Bellator 241, March 13, to pull the plug on the event in Uncasville, Conn.

The UFC pressed on, holding UFC Brasilia on March 14 without fans. It turned out to be the promotion’s last event for nearly two months, but fights held in an empty arena turned into a sneak preview of the new normal.

White made the foolhardy choice of attempting to continue on with UFC 249 on its originally scheduled April 18 date, which promised the five-times-booked-but-never-happened Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson fight. With no reputable commission willing to sanction it, White ran from regulation and attempted to hold an outlaw show on Native American land in California to skirt around the state’s stay-at-home order. At this point, common sense prevailed, as Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sen. Dianne Feinstein leaned on the owner of the UFC’s promotional partner, Disney, to shut it down.

Forced onto the sidelines, the UFC got things right the second time around. They got back under athletic commission jurisdiction, enacted COVID testing procedures that proved pioneering in the sports world, and returned for UFC 249 on May 9 in Jacksonville, Fla., the first major American sports event of the COVID era and one of the most memorable nights in the sport’s history.

You got a sense of just how different things were going to be when Francis Ngannou unleashed a terrifying 20-second knockout of Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Normally, such a moment would unleash a spine-tingling eruption from the crowd. Instead, as it played out in silence, it almost felt like watching a snuff film.

By the time Justin Gaethje finished Ferguson and claimed an interim lightweight title belt, it was clear UFC 249 was a triumph, an escape for fans who had been pelted with nothing but depressing COVID news for nearly two months. It was proof you could pull off an event in the middle of a pandemic.

After the UFC put on three cards in 10 days in Jacksonville, the remainder of the schedule went off at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and “Fight Island,” an overwrought name for a location they had previously visited in Abu Dhabi. Bellator resumed in July and ran 15 cards, including the first major MMA event in France, Bellator 248. The PFL, which is tied to a regular season/playoff format, had no way of making up for lost time and canceled its 2020 season but is scheduled for a 2021 return.

Nearly as soon as the schedule resumed, another trend started to develop – one of fighter holdouts and retirements. Another development at UFC 249 saw Henry Cejudo shock the sport by announcing his retirement after retaining his bantamweight belt against former champ Dominick Cruz. He’s since angled on Twitter for a variety of fights, but has not yet returned. In August, Daniel Cormier made good on his promise to walk away after losing to Stipe Miocic in a trilogy fight that headlined UFC 252.

Cormier’s nemesis, Jon Jones, declared he was walking away after the UFC rebuffed his requests for better pay in order to step up to heavyweight and fight Ngannou. He ultimately relinquished his light heavyweight belt and has yet to commit to his next fight. Jorge Masvidal similarly threatened to walk away, but returned to fight welterweight champion Kamaru Usman on short notice at UFC 251 after original title challenger Gilbert Burns dropped out due to a positive COVID-19 test.

Also retiring was Nurmagomedov, whose father and trainer, Abdulmanap, a beloved and respected figure in the MMA world, died of COVID-19 complications on July 3. Nurmagomedov returned at UFC 254 and defeated Gaethje via second-round submission, then broke down sobbing in remembrance of his father. He announced his retirement with a 29-0 record.

The emotional scene was yet another reminder that COVID’s specter always hovered, even when things seemed back to semi-normal. White was closely connected to President Donald Trump, who downplayed the virus throughout the year, but it could not be wished away, leading to almost a split-screen playing out in real time as summer turned into fall.

On one hand? White and several UFC fighters campaigned on behalf of Trump’s reelection, which included Masvidal going on an “anti-socialism” bus tour of Florida with Donald Trump Jr., conducted just after Trump Sr.’s case of COVID-19 was treated by socialized medicine at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The campaigning efforts were for naught, as Trump ultimately lost the popular vote to former vice president Joe Biden by more than 7 million and lost the Electoral College on a count of 306-232.

On the other side of the screen, the UFC went on a mad dash of nearly a half-year’s worth of weeks with consecutive events, beginning in July and running through December, as the company looked to fulfill its contracted number of dates on its ESPN contract. COVID-related fallouts became the norm, as did scrambles to adjust.

Sometimes, we got co-main events like Carlos Felipe vs. Yorgan de Castro. Sometimes, we got inspired moments like Paul Felder stepping in to face Raphael Dos Anjos on a week’s notice after coronavirus forced Islam Makhachev out. Sometimes we got pure magic, like flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno putting in impressive wins at UFC 255, then turning around three weeks later and putting on this writer’s choice for men’s “Fight of the Year” at UFC 256.

That duo is being targeted for an immediate rematch. If nothing else, we learned in 2020 that come hell or high water, the show will go on. It’s highly likely to be at least six months before Figgy and Moreno can rest up, go through a full training camp, and get back at it. With the vaccine coming around, that’s enough lead time to lend hope that when they do this a second time, things are safe enough that we can welcome fans back to the arena, who can give them every bit as much love as the fans showed for Zhang and Joanna at the onset of this entire episode.