What Could Have Been – The Banning (and Unbanning) of the American Kickboxing Academy from the UFC

2008 was a banner year for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Their expansion and dominance over the world of mixed martial arts had never been more prevalent, as their biggest mainstream competitors – PRIDE FC and Elite XC – had been run out of commission in the past two years. To cap it all off, the company promised a groundbreaking UFC video game for release in early 2009 that would further push the sport into the mainstream. However, this expansion led to turmoil within the UFC.

While the gameplay development went relatively smoothly, the organization ran into some major concerns with fighter likenesses and usage rights. Some of these issues were minor – Clay Guida could not be included because animating his hair caused problems with the game’s physics formulas – but there was one major problem. The UFC was asking for its contracted fighters to sign contracts allowing the company lifetime usage of their image for promotional purposes. While many fighters, including UFC lifers Chuck Liddell and Georges St. Pierre, acquiesced with little conflict, welterweight contender Jon Fitch did not.

Clay Guida’s hair, completely unprogramable.

Fitch, coming off a UFC 87 loss to champion St. Pierre, was upset with the contract and refused to sign. Why? “Because it asked me for a lifetime contract for the video games, so they would have exclusive rights to use our likeness for these video games and we couldn't go and do any other video games ever again in our lifetime." Those are Fitch’s words, which seem reasonable enough, especially when he also claims that the contract wouldn’t have paid the fighters for the use of their likenesses. The UFC was in a bind – it had promised all of its fighters to game publisher THQ, and now stood to face some embarrassment, but this was something that could be worked out with a little more communication, right?

Well, no, not immediately. Jon Fitch, who had gone 8-1 in the UFC and was widely considered the second best fighter in the world in his weight class, had his contract voided by the UFC. And then the UFC cut all the guys he trained with for showing solidarity in contract talks. In essence, president Dana White banned anyone who trained at the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) in San Jose, California, from fighting in the promotion.

Quit smiling, jackass, Dana says you're fired.

Less than 24 hours later, things were resolved. Fitch and his AKA teammates were back on the roster after a talk with UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta, and they signed the video game agreement, apparently without any changes to the contract’s language. Just like that, things were back in order, and the Ultimate Fighting juggernaut rolled on. But what would have happened if the AKA remained exiled from the UFC?

The major fighters in question here make up the bulk of the UFC’s top tier of welterweights – Fitch, Mike Swick, and Josh Koscheck – respectively ranked second, fourth, and seventh in the division in BloodyElbow’s consensus rankings, would have been cut from the UFC, and in this instance, let’s assume they would be blackballed from the promotion for several years. These fighters would likely have been snatched up by Affliction or possibly Strikeforce, and then probably had their contracts optioned to Strikeforce after Affliction closed up shop and turned back into a t-shirt company for guys who can’t wear clothing without skulls on it. This also assumes that these American fighters would prefer to stay at home rather than fight in Japan with Dream (who would develop a relationship with Strikeforce in later years) or Sengoku (a long shot for elite fighters).

It is also interesting to think of what may have happened if Affliction snapped up these contracts. Could Fitch, Swick, and Koscheck have revived Affliction? It seems unlikely, as their methods of overpaying fighters, having long, uneven breaks between events, and a severe lack of depth or dedicated fanbase had doomed the promotion from the start. For the sake of argument, let's assume that even if these fighters went to Tom Atencio’s promotion, they would have ended up in Strikeforce afterwards.

More skulls! I want so many skulls that Ed Hardy craps himself when he sees this shirt!

Now, all of the sudden, Strikeforce has one of the best welterweight lineups in MMA, with Fitch, Swick, and Koscheck battling for the belt with Jake Shields (assuming he’d stay at welterweight), Nick Diaz, and Jay Hieron. The added attention to the 170 pound division may also have put pressure on the company to pick up Paul Daley’s option from Affliction rather than let him jump to the UFC. The top 5 welterweights in either promotion would look like this:

UFC (BE Rank) Strikeforce (BE Rank)

1. Georges St. Pierre (1) Jake Shields (6)
2. Thiago Alves (3) Jon Fitch (2)
3. Matt Hughes (4t) Josh Koscheck (4t)
4. Carlos Condit (8) Mike Swick (7)
5. Dan Hardy/Paulo Thiago (12/10) Paul Daley/Nick Diaz (9/18)

What was once a major gap in competition between the two groups is now much closer, and Strikeforce has the juice to either stage some big PPVs or fill up a nationally televised fight card. With their solid management and blue collar style, the UFC would see one of the most credible threats it has ever dealt with (behind only PRIDE in terms of overall talent and depth).

The only other notable fighter that would have been dropped in the equation is quickly rising heavyweight Cain Velasquez. Velasquez is the kind of fighter that Strikeforce loves – a young, hard fighting prospect from California that can rise to prominence, and then become too expensive to resign. However, given the company’s recent acquisition of Fedor Emelianenko they’ve shown a willingness to spend money on heavyweight talent. That would reshape the heavyweight division to look like this:

UFC (BE Rank) Strikeforce (BE Rank)

1. Brock Lesnar (2) Fedor Emelianenko (1)
2. Minotauro Nogueira (3) Brett Rogers (8)
3. Frank Mir (4) Andrei Arlovski (10)
4. Shane Carwin (7) Cain Velasquez (11)
5. Couture/Dos Santos (12/10) Overeem/Werdum (12/13)

While the UFC still has the edge, there’s a lot of interesting matchups to be made in this fictional Strikeforce division. Maybe even enough to get Overeem back to America to defend the belt that he hasn’t even looked at since 2007. Of course, this fails to look at the glaring holes in Strikeforce’s light heavyweight (major gaps) and lightweight (minor gaps) divisions, but these deficiencies could have been temporarily filled with more women’s title fights (an option the UFC doesn’t have) while the company reloads.

We need you to fight every time one of our divisions craps out. Think you can be a distraction?

All in all, if the UFC dropped AKA, it could have been a costly move. While Strikeforce has emerged as a legitimate threat in the past year, the ability to sign guys like Fitch, Koscheck, Swick, and Velasquez, would have been a coup for them, and given the company some notable headliners – which would have helped them sell tickets at the gate and possibly develop their network deal with CBS even faster. Though some might say that Strikeforce couldn’t afford these fighters, the deal with Fedor completed after the collapse of Affliction shows otherwise. The company is showing new signs of life, which was necessary to fill the void left by countless competitors in attempting to become an elite fighting promotion in the United States.

So the UFC made the right decision in bringing these fighters back. White’s strongarm technique worked, getting his guys to sign their contracts without seemingly losing anything on his end but a little goodwill. And if there’s one thing Dana’s public battles with fighters like Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture have shown, goodwill is only a minor negotiating ploy in the world of mixed martial arts.