Where Have All The Superstars Gone?
Trying to figure out why supremely talented competitors aren't resonating with fans the way their championship predecessor did in the past.
Dana White likes to say that whenever one superstar is reaching the end of their career, another always comes along to replace them.
While that’s true in terms of the level of talent competing inside the Octagon, it’s not always the case in terms of pay-per-view drawing power and overall popularity with the fight-loving public. If anything, the number of fighters with the ability to consistently bring large groups of people to PPV events and resonate beyond the hardcore set has been in steady decline over the last several years, and the cause of it remains a frequent subject of discussion.
Case and point: early morning bullshitting with my old boss Paul Chapman turned into a conversation about this very thing, which he and I used to discuss on the regular in the old Keyboard Kimura Podcast and Fight Talk Friday days at The Province.
Even though the athletes he listed span a couple different eras inside the Octagon, he’s correct that for a number of years, there was almost always someone on the marquee that got you excited, made you want to purchase the pay-per-view, and over the years, the number of competitors with that kind of magnetism have not only dwindled, but no one has risen up to replace them either.
Most people would agree that 2016 was the last really strong year across the board on PPV for the UFC, and a quick scan of the headlining pairings makes it clear why that is the case:
UFC 195: Lawler vs. Condit
UFC 196: McGregor vs. Diaz I
UFC 197: Jones vs. OSP; Johnson vs. Cejudo I co-main
UFC 198: Werdum vs. Miocic
UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping; Cruz vs. Faber III co-main
UFC 200: Tate vs. Nunes
UFC 201: Lawler vs. Woodley
UFC 202: McGregor vs. Diaz II
UFC 203: Miocic vs. Overeem
UFC 204: Bisping vs. Henderson II
UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor; two more title fights
UFC 206: Holloway vs. Pettis
UFC 207: Nunes vs. Rousey
There were three events headlined by the biggest star in the sport (McGregor), the return of an embattled superstar in what was supposed to be a massive rematch (Jones), another former champion and massive crossover star returning “to reclaim what she lost” (Rousey), and an historic event that got decimated by issues (UFC 200), but still drew big numbers because of the depth of the card.
On top of that, several of the other events featured tenured talents with reasonable followings (Lawler, Rockhold, Bisping) or an additional something that drew people in, like the totality of the fight card at UFC 198 or the debut of CM Punk at UFC 203.
The only show from that list that didn’t really pop for people was UFC 206 in Toronto, which was actually a really fun event from top to bottom and served as the starting point of Max Holloway’s championship run atop the featherweight division.
But it’s that event and UFC 203 in Cleveland, where hometown boy and newly minted heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic squared off with long-time star Alistair Overeem, that help illustrate my initial counterpoint to Chappy this morning:
Look at the athletes he mentioned and who has come to supplant them atop their respective divisions:
Jon Jones > Daniel Cormier > Jones > Jan Blachowicz
Ronda Rousey > Holly Holm > Miesha Tate > Amanda Nunes
Conor McGregor > Jose Aldo > Max Holloway > Alexander Volkanovski
Conor McGregor > Khabib Nurmagomedov
Anderson Silva > Chris Weidman > Luke Rockhold > Michael Bisping > GSP > Robert Whittaker > Israel Adesanya
Cain Velasquez > Fabricio Werdum > Stipe Miocic > Daniel Cormier > Miocic
Brock Lesnar > Cain Velasquez; see above
GSP > Sabbatical > Johny Hendricks > Robbie Lawler > Tyron Woodley > Kamrau Usman
Demetrious Johnson > Henry Cejudo > Retired > Deiveson Figueiredo
In terms of sheer in-cage talent and overall skill, I would take Nunes over Rousey and Khabib over Conor, without hesitation, and consider Silva and Adesanya, Velasquez and Miocic, and GSP and Usman a wash, regardless of whether you think any or all of those sound blasphemous to you.
Featherweight McGregor is still the better overall fighter than Volkanovski, but I’d really like to see it, and while “Mighty Mouse” might be the most complete fighter I’ve ever seen compete, Figueiredo does bring something different to the cage every time he fights that Johnson didn’t have.
The only instance where “then” is orders of magnitude better than “now” is at light heavyweight, which makes sense since Jones is the arguably the greatest fighter in the history of the sport.
What is different is that most of the current champions don’t have a modicum of the gravitational pull that their predecessors did, and why that is remains confusing to me because you can’t just chalk it up to being a personality thing.
Cain Velasquez wasn’t a big trash talker or much of a talker at all, but people tuned in to see him fight. Maybe he benefitted from beating Lesnar for the title and there was some transference of fans and attention coming out of that fight, but even coming off his lengthy stays on the sidelines, folks were always keen on seeing Velasquez step back into the Octagon in a way that doesn’t seem to be there with Miocic, who has proven himself to be one of the best heavyweights of all time.
Conversely, Israel Adesanya oozes personality and style, plus he’s unbeaten, and yet his fights don’t generate the same kind of “Can’t Miss This” force that accompanied the vast majority of those previous champions’ fights.
So what has changed? As always, I think there are a number of factors, rather than just one simple, easy explanation.
Change in Audience
While the UFC largely still appeals to the same 18-35 demographic, some of us that were in that grouping during the Silva / GSP / Chuck / Randy / early TUF days have aged out and the folks that have replaced us don’t necessarily have the same diehard, gotta watch’em all, can’t stop talking about all these amazing fighters that I love mindset as me and the rest of the now 40somethings that can’t follow the sport with the same passion and vigour because, well, we’re now in the 36-52 demo and the amount of energy available to be committed to geeking out about fighters and upcoming events is significantly less.
Additionally, what appeals to the newer members of the 18-35 demographic aren’t necessarily the same things that appealed to those of us that have aged out. While we didn’t care how many times Randy Couture had lost and social media wasn’t even a thing when we first reached this age range, younger fans care more about IG posts, Twitter beef, and what’s hot right now, not long-term commitments to fighters who simply handle their business inside the Octagon.
Yes, I’m painting with broad strokes here, but generally speaking, I think this holds true.
There are always outliers like McGregor, who remains a massive star despite his middling record of late, but he also garners loads of attention as a result of the life he’s living on social media and the sheer volume of quotes and memes he’s delivered over the years.
Increased Talent Overall
Part of why it’s more difficult for the best of the best to standout and generate the same kind of followings and must-see allure as it was in previous eras is that having the kind of prolonged, dominant run that helped make Silva and St-Pierre and Rousey and Jones megastars is much more difficult now because the level of competition from top to bottom is better.
No champion on the men’s side of the roster has more than three successful title defenses, and the one guy that does announced his retirement in October.
It seems like just when a champion is really starting to build some momentum, there is a title change (or they retire, in the case of Henry Cejudo) and fans just aren’t as keen on constantly learning about new champions over and over and over again, even if those frequent changes are a sign that the overall talent level is incredibly high.
Max Holloway is a terrific example here, as folks were a little slow to get on board “The Blessed Express” when he was climbing the ranks and claiming the interim featherweight title, but slowly started getting behind the quirky, but charismatic Hawaiian right up until he ran into Alexander Volkanovski, stopping him from ascending to superstar status.
You can see that people were ready to go there with him too by the way everyone reacted to his brilliant performance against Calvin Katter earlier this year, but with few exceptions, former champions aren’t going to be big draws.
If any of the current champions can go on a little run over the next couple years, amassing four, five, six consecutive successful title defenses, I think it’s possible we see one or two of them emerge as genuine superstars, with Adensanya and bantamweight kingpin Petr Yan being the betting favorites.
Of course, the inverse is true on the women’s side of the roster, where the gap between a couple titleholders and their closest challengers remains wide.
While Amanda Nunes has defended the bantamweight title five times and Valentina Shevchenko has successfully retained the flyweight strap on four occasions, their dominance is used against them as a reason not to get all that excited to see them compete because “they’re just going to blow out (insert challenger) anyway.”
The only other champion in the distaff divisions, Zhang Weili, has only defended her title once thus far, and while it was a certified banger, her limited exposure to the larger UFC audience means she’s only just beginning her ascent to stardom now.
Early Identification, Missed Opportunities, and Bad Reads
Fans knew they should pay close attention to Jon Jones early on because everyone told them he was special and the way he was showcased afforded the UFC audience plenty of opportunities to familiarize themselves with the man who would eventually claim the light heavyweight title and reign over the division for the better part of the last decade.
Silva’s debut was a title eliminator. St-Pierre was marked for greatness early on, as was McGregor, and Rousey forced her way into the title conversation in Strikeforce before breaking down the gender wall in the UFC, which immediately increased her stardom. Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos were declared “future contenders” early in their UFC runs and positioned accordingly on their parallel marches towards the top of the heavyweight ranks.
Identifying all of those athletes as “someone to watch” almost immediately made it easy for fans to follow their ascents, and the UFC did an excellent job of providing them with showcase opportunities, either on pay-per-view or with main event assignments on televised events.
Spotlighting fighters with legitimate star potential has become an increasingly difficult venture these days as there is an increased demand for established names to headline events and fans narrow their focus to only a small segment of the roster.
Additionally, there have been a handful of miscalculations and missed opportunities where emerging talents remained under the radar right up until the point they were in contention, leading to situations where legitimate talents get the “Came Out of Nowhere” treatment because they weren’t given the time in the spotlight their talents and place in their respective divisions otherwise merited.
Strawweight champ Zhang Weili is a terrific example, as her final fight before challenging for the belt was the second bout on the UFC 235 main card, where all the attention was focused on the three matchups that followed her win over Tecia Torres.
The same could be said of flyweight kingpin Deiveson Figueiredo as well, as his final bout of 2019 was stationed in the middle of the preliminary card on an October event in Orlando, Florida. However, it was also his seventh UFC appearance, the win pushed his record to 17-1 overall, and he was an obvious candidate to compete for the title when it was clear that Henry Cejudo wasn’t sticking around, so I’m not sure why so many people who claim to adore the flyweight division were so unfamiliar with him as they were during his breakout 2020 campaign.
The other part of this is that there have just been some bad reads and results that broke the wrong way when it comes to potential emerging stars.
Darren Till being positioned as a star has always felt forced to me — like an attempt to replicate the Conor McGregor rise with a less dominant fighter — and the fact that he has two narrow victories and three losses in his last five fights highlights that he’s not quite at that level.
Yair Rodriguez got pushed too hard, too quickly out of the gate, and has been mercurial at best since Frankie Edgar drubbed him at UFC 211. The same could be said for the man he’s been linked to for the last year, Zabit Magomedsharipov, who gets talked about like a future champion, but has yet to beat a Top 5 opponent.
Aspen Ladd got hustled into a fight with Germaine de Randamie and had her unbeaten run halted in a flash.
Cynthia Calvillo garnered an early push, stumbled when she got close to contention, switched divisions, got another push, and stumbled again.
Cody Garbrandt got hurt soon after his masterful championship performance against Dominick Cruz, then lost three straight, all by knockout. He rebounded with a vicious knockout win of his own back in June, but hasn’t fought since.
Johnny Walker was overhyped and derailed, while Leon Edwards has remained under-appreciated and left to languish on the fringes of contention in the welterweight division despite an eight-fight winning streak.
Sean O’Malley got compared to legitimately transcendent NBA players ahead of his fight with Chito Vera and got finished, yet there somehow still hasn’t been a “La Femme Valentina” promotional push around the globe-trotting, gun-loving, international woman of mystery who also happens to be a genuine bad-ass and UFC champion, Valentina Shevchenko.
Khamzat Chimaev is treated like “the next big thing” before beating anyone of real substance, but folks continue to sleep on a plethora of legitimate prospects that have beaten better competition and has similar championship potential.
Until everyone gets better at identifying and cultivating championship talent, building bona fide stars is going to remain a difficult task.
Shifting Conversations and Coverage
What we talk about has shifted because what people want to read about or hear about has shifted.
Here’s how I would sum it up:
Remember when MuchMusic / MTV used to be almost exclusively dedicated to airing music videos and music-related content, only to then shift to reality TV programming and airing movies and syndicated classics and very little actual music content?
That’s kind of what MMA websites feel like to me these days. Everything is MMA-related, but most of it leans more towards TMZ than telling actual stories about the upcoming fights or emerging fighters or that kind of stuff.
I get it, but it impacts the way fans perceive different fighters, and that transfers over to how they view those athletes and the innumerable competitors that receive little to no mention on major sites when they’re primed to step into the Octagon and compete.
No one really likes when I say these things, but it’s the truth: how we talk about these men and women impacts how the people reading us, listening to us, interacting with us on social media see them, and if we’re only talking about a finite group of competitors, those are the people fans believe matter the most.
Throughout the day as I’ve been writing this, I’ve been trying to figure out how I personally feel about the UFC’s current superstar shortage and why it seems like such a constant stumbling block for some fans, and here’s what I’ve figured out:
I actually like this current period more, but I completely understand why others don’t.
There may not be three, four, or five genuine top of the line, capital S Superstars in the UFC right now, but the overall depth of talent has never been better and I would trade those three or four or five massive stars for the 25-30 ultra-talented, always want to see them compete, really phenomenal talents populating the top tiers of the various divisions and the large collection of fighters hovering just below that level, waiting for the opportunity to join that group.
I want to see Michael Chiesa and Neil Magny headlining shows, and watch Shevchenko and Nunes dominate, and Jan Blachowicz continue writing his cool comeback story, and Kamaru Usman operate as the evolutionary successor to Georges St-Pierre.
But I get that I’m different and most people need a couple big names they can latch onto because following 10-15 fighters is time consuming, yet alone trying to keep up with 25 or 30 and a non-stop schedule of events.
I don’t know that there is a single cure-all solution to the current state of affairs, but I do think there are a couple competitors with that true superstar potential, including Adesanya, Yan, Zhang, and heavyweight specimen Francis Ngannou.
Between making better reads on prospects and giving more competitors time in the spotlight, a few genuine gems should be sparkle and shine, but expecting another McGregor or Rousey to come along every couple of years is unrealistic.
They’re outliers — rare bursts of energy and talent that can’t be replicated, the same way we’re not going to see another LeBron James or Serena Williams any time soon.
There may not be many true superstars to fixate on right now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still have a ton of great talent competing week-in and week-out inside the Octagon.
Maybe it’s time we embrace them, elevate them, and commit more energy and attention to what we do have rather than lament what’s missing and trying too hard to manufacture the next superstar?