When will Brazilian/U.S. dominance end?

Sisti

90% of the world's best MMA fighters are from these 2 countries. You'd think with the global popularity of MMA this would change at some point

When do you think that the dominance of these 2 countries will end? If not, why do you think they dominate so much?

Birdhound

I would say its mainly because UFC management doesn't even look for fighters outside of the US and Brazil. IF a fighter from Europe (except the UK) or Asia does actually have a decent record, all that happens is Dana goes on twitter and tells all the nuthuggers that they suck anyway. Plus they have far too much money tied up in TUF to give actual fighters a chance in general.

Sisti

Birdhound said:

I would say its mainly because UFC management doesn't even look for fighters outside of the US and Brazil. IF a fighter from Europe (except the UK) or Asia does actually have a decent record, all that happens is Dana goes on twitter and tells all the nuthuggers that they suck anyway. Plus they have far too much money tied up in TUF to give actual fighters a chance in general.

I think that has a part in it...obviously the Fedor situation comes to mind

Birdhound

Sisti said:

Birdhound said:

I would say its mainly because UFC management doesn't even look for fighters outside of the US and Brazil. IF a fighter from Europe (except the UK) or Asia does actually have a decent record, all that happens is Dana goes on twitter and tells all the nuthuggers that they suck anyway. Plus they have far too much money tied up in TUF to give actual fighters a chance in general.

I think that has a part in it...obviously the Fedor situation comes to mind

Yeah, i may have been venting a little there, but if you ignore the bit about Dana and twitter i honestly think those are the main reasons. I think this may be slowly changing, but we have definitely missed out on seeing a lot of great fighters in the octagon already (Hari, Manhoef and Mousasi come to mind as far as current fighters are concerned). They need to sign Musa Amagov asap. IMO hes gonna be a name to watch in the next couple of years.

Sisti

I don't think those are the main reasons, but definitely contribute to this. You do have to give those 2 countries some serious credit. Being on my high school's wresting team (I'm from U.S.) it's insane how hard you get pushed just for being a decent high school wrestler. Nevermind what it would take to be a national-level college champ. America also has a long history of having outstanding boxers.

As far as Brazil goes, their jiu-jitsu is top-notch and above the rest of the world still. They have a tough culture and are able to consistently produce top fighters

Combine that with the fact that MMA is very big in those 2 countries, and it makes sense why they have so many great fighters. Also, world-class athletes aren't made overnight. Now that MMA is big in Australia/Canada/U.K/etc. the youth there now will be getting into MMA and 15 years from now is when you will start seeing world-class fighters from there

Birdhound

I totally agree with the wrestling argument, there isn't many sports that push you that hard at such an early age, and wrestling is a great base for MMA. As for boxing, if you can box you don't go into MMA. I don't think theres much special about BJJ in Brazil except its what the Gracies did and its where they came from tbh, and theres some pretty tough places in Eastern Europe. Combat Sambo is very popular in Russia and has been for the last 50 or so years, but you don't see or hear anything about in the UFC for some reason. I think you hit the nail on the head at the end, i really hope that in 5 - 10 years there will be enough money in the sport to have multiple organisations (or at least regional UFC franchises in Europe and Asia), so that there is 3 or 4 belts to fight for in each weight class and MMA will actually have 'undisputed' champions as in boxing.

Gabri1985

Everyone else is at least ten years behind. It will take like you said ten to fifteen years before everyone else is at that level. Over here in the uk mma is still a small sport.

TheOvereem

Unfortunately there isn't really global popularity of MMA quite yet really, everyone else is playing catch up and will do so for at least another 3/4 years.
US and Brazil will probably still dominate in 10 years time, population is the key.

Mr_Mousasi

When the abundance of young Russian talent is given enough time to develop.

RodrigoRua

You gotta take in consideration lots of things but I gotta say population (look at the similar size among Brazil, US and Canada), time zone (hate when fights are in Europes time) and history.

On the other hand, I think if a fighter from any country IS VERY GOOD, eventually he will be in UFC. Truth is that we see fighters outside UFC and we think "Oh, this guy is the real deal" then if he gets in UFC he totally suck. I personally think UFC has "bright minds", experts in MMA who can tell who should UFC hire or not.

You gotta also remember that SOMETIMES, UFC will hire a fighter to make another orgazination look weak and to show everybody outside UFC is just hype. Look at Shields and Hector so far. Shields was the GOD in SF and today who knows where is him just. Forgotten just like SF will be. If UFC was so sure about Lombard, why they didnt give him an immediate title shot at Anderson ? No, they matched him up with a tough fighter (Boestch) and sarcastly he lost ....

Bobmyster

This year gus will be lhw champion, bisping MW champion, overeem HW champion. So that's a sweede a Brit and a Dutch champion! Europe are not just good At golf mi old mucker! Oh yeah and pigs might fly......they will if you kick them hard enough!!!!

Ozpride

Mr_Mousasi said:

When the abundance of young Russian talent is given enough time to develop.

This. There's about ten Russians currently waiting to make boring American wrestlers cry in the cage

Ameriman

When more countries embrace wrestling.

GSP_over_Silva

Mexico is already taking over.

BruteDion

Ozpride said:

Mr_Mousasi said:

When the abundance of young Russian talent is given enough time to develop.

This. There's about ten Russians currently waiting to make boring American wrestlers cry in the cage

More like the Turks...when they get BJJ down...damm

They already own us in pretty much everything wrestling

forgivemyhonesty

Sisti said:

90% of the world's best MMA fighters are from these 2 countries. You'd think with the global popularity of MMA this would change at some point

When do you think that the dominance of these 2 countries will end? If not, why do you think they dominate so much?

When Mike Ricci moves to lightweight and Rory moves to welterweight. Then Canada will dominate. haha

PoloRidah

forgivemyhonesty said:

Sisti said:

90% of the world's best MMA fighters are from these 2 countries. You'd think with the global popularity of MMA this would change at some point

When do you think that the dominance of these 2 countries will end? If not, why do you think they dominate so much?

When Mike Ricci moves to lightweight and Rory moves to welterweight. Then Canada will dominate. haha

Rory is already at welterweight. :-/

Omoplataypus

Gabri1985 said:

Everyone else is at least ten years behind. It will take like you said ten to fifteen years before everyone else is at that level. Over here in the uk mma is still a small sport.

And in 10 years when everyone else is at the Level that America/Brazil is at now, those two countries will be another 10 years better. So it probably wont ever even out.

Look at the animals coming up now that dont have a distinct base, they train straight MMA from day one. Thats going to be hard for the developing countries to contend with in the future.

Me_Against_The_World

Birdhound said:

Sisti said:

Birdhound said:

I would say its mainly because UFC management doesn't even look for fighters outside of the US and Brazil. IF a fighter from Europe (except the UK) or Asia does actually have a decent record, all that happens is Dana goes on twitter and tells all the nuthuggers that they suck anyway. Plus they have far too much money tied up in TUF to give actual fighters a chance in general.

I think that has a part in it...obviously the Fedor situation comes to mind

Yeah, i may have been venting a little there, but if you ignore the bit about Dana and twitter i honestly think those are the main reasons. I think this may be slowly changing, but we have definitely missed out on seeing a lot of great fighters in the octagon already (Hari, Manhoef and Mousasi come to mind as far as current fighters are concerned). They need to sign Musa Amagov asap. IMO hes gonna be a name to watch in the next couple of years.

Amagov brothers for life! Musa looks wicked talented, he's super young him and Adlan have been coming over to the US training at Jackson's training with Jones in particular and hitting up 10th planet Jiu Jitsu. I hope the UFC signs both of them soon. Chechnya!

mmafan73

i mean you guys saying **** about the fedor incident need to look into it....Dana and the UFC tried....it wasnt fedor or danas fault it was fedors managers....they were asking for crazy **** that the UFC couldnt do....Fedors managers **** up what could have been

Birdhound

mmafan73 said:

i mean you guys saying **** about the fedor incident need to look into it....Dana and the UFC tried....it wasnt fedor or danas fault it was fedors managers....they were asking for crazy **** that the UFC couldnt do....Fedors managers **** up what could have been

Bottom line is Dana flat out called him a joke. Whatever the reasons behind him not coming to the UFC (and yes his management was impossible to deal with), there is no excuse for Dana to talk the way he did. Fedor was earning $2m a fight and owned like 15% of M-1, so the fact they wanted to co-promote a fight instead of getting paid $500,000 for fighting for the UFC may seem unreasonable, but you can see his point of view. Dana on the other hand just didn't get his way and then acted like a child.

Sisti

Birdhound said:

mmafan73 said:

Dana on the other hand just didn't get his way and then acted like a child.

That IS dana white. He runs his company primarily on his own ego, and can't deal with anyone f'ing with him, which basically led to more people f'ing with him than ever.

The cool thing about him is he is more accessible and real than selig/goddell/etc. by miles, but the annoying thing about him is he gets his panties in a bunch over every little thing. Just learn to get some thick skin if you are going to be the President of a company. Does he have any clue how many people's lives he's messed with by firing people...if he is going to hurt people's families and lives, he could learn to not get all riled up when Fedor's management won't take his offer for 1% of a PPV's revenues

najma

Sisti said:

90% of the world's best MMA fighters are from these 2 countries.

No no no.
90% of UFC fighters are from those countries. That's a crucial distinction here.

Yesterdays_Hero

Mr_Mousasi said:

When the abundance of young Russian talent is given enough time to develop.

Probably never but if anyone is going to rival the Brazilians and 'Mericans it's probably the Russians.

najma

Ameriman said:

When more countries embrace wrestling.

FAIL

Just because there's no wrestling in Brazil and the UK does NOT mean other countries don't embrace wrestling. Just on the contrary - plenty of countries have a longer and grander wrestling tradition than the USA.

All-time Olympic medal table – Greco-Roman – 1896–2012

1. Soviet Union (URS) 60 (total no. of medals, but order goes by the no. of golds)
2. Finland (FIN) 58
3. Sweden (SWE) 56
4. Hungary (HUN) 36
5. Bulgaria (BUL) 31
6. Romania (ROU) 27
7. Turkey (TUR) 20
8. Poland (POL) 20 Go Poland! :-)
9. Russia (RUS) 14
10. Italy (ITA) 18
...
14. USA 14 <---- LOL<br />

And seeing how Greco-Roman wrestling has seemed as the more successful form of wrestling in MMA, yeah, think about it.

All-time Olympic medal table – Freestyle – 1904–2004

1 Soviet Union (URS) 86
2 United States (USA) 78
3 Iran (IRI) 35
4 Russia (RUS) 26
5 Turkey (TUR) 35
6 Sweden (SWE) 26
7 Finland (FIN) 25
8 Bulgaria (BUL) 32
9 Japan (JPN) 35
10 South Korea (KOR) 4

Now, calculating this per capita for a valid comparison, USA's got nothing on countries like Sweden, Bulgaria or Hungary, which are soo much smaller. Just shows how much more embraced wrestling is in those countries. With that goes the level of wrestling obviously.