Will MMA Become as Corrupt as Boxing?

Mixed martial arts is an increasingly popular sport, which due to its basis in combat has drawn many similarities to boxing. However many fans are concerned with the fact that MMA is seemingly even more susceptible to corruption than boxing, which has faced huge problems of this nature in the past. Although there have been few recognized corruption incidents in MMA thus far, the risks of these problems arising as the sport becomes more established are ever growing. Leading many people to conclude that it is seemingly only a matter of time before they are encountered.

Because of the fact that boxers to some extent have to put together their own fights, they are often protected from fighters who would prove too difficult for than at any one point in time. The reason for this is that they usually have managers and advisors who are protecting them due to the fact that they are making money from them. This symbiotic relationship is usually only lucrative so long as the fighter keeps winning, and so often it is in the best interest of the management team of a fighter to hand pick their opponents.

Although hand picking opponents is in some ways dishonest, mixed martial artists are often robbed of this luxury for the most part of their careers. There are a few top fighters who can to a degree pick and choose their fights, although the vast majority are simply told who they are going to fight. The reason for this is that they are contracted to a particular organization for a set number of fights, meaning that until the contract is honored, they usually can't fight anywhere else, or at all without permission. This essentially takes away MMA fighters bargaining power and means that they have to fight whoever the parent company tells them to.

Despite the fact that both of these matchmaking models work in most cases, MMA leaves more room for corruption. For example if the matchmaker is told that a certain fighter should lose, then they can hand pick any opponent for that fighter that they want in order to make this happen. A boxer would have the power to turn this fight down flat, although a mixed martial artist usually has no option but to fight someone tailor made to beat them. Obviously this doesn't happen very often, but the fact that it can happen and that the truth of the matter would probably never come out means that corruption is rife within MMA.

Similarly the natural progression of a fighter towards high profile or championship fights is often subverted from the natural order. In theory a boxer or martial artist has to fight their way to the top of the rankings in order to get a title shot, usually defeating several opponents with top ten rankings within the division to get there. In boxing, the ruling bodies are usually in charge of these rakings, and so if a fighter gets to the top of the rankings in one organization artificially, (i.e. without having to face any other highly ranked fighters). Then the rankings of the other ruling bodies will reflect this and the fighter wont be universally ranked.

In Mixed martial arts however the rankings and title shots are decided within each promotion, meaning that often skilled but not exciting fighters are left waiting while fan favorites are pushed to the top. A good example of this would be Brock Lesnars title shot in the UFC. Having only recently taken up the sport of mixed martial arts, Lesnar was allowed a title shot after only three professional fights, one if which he lost. However the reason for this unprecedented rise is seemingly due to the fact that he was previously a WWE wrestler, and so can attract a huge fan base already.

Similar examples are going on all the time, particularly in the case of deserving fighters having to wait while more exciting fighters are given title shots ahead of them. Another couple of UFC examples of this would be Yushin Okami in the middleweight division, and Lyoto Machida in the light heavyweight division. Both were seemingly put on the sidelines because of the fact that they weren't necessarily exciting to watch, despite the fact that they were both the next ranked contenders.

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