Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), often better known as cage-fighting, provides a space for those in less than fortunate economic and social situations to earn a living. By fighting, those individuals develop discipline, confidence and social security whilst competing in a beautiful culmination of hundreds of years of martial arts.
However, it would be foolish to portray MMA as a haven of rehabilitation and positive mental health attitudes. Instead, MMA upholds very strict values of traditional masculinity to the point of toxicity. Fighters must be always ready to fight and never show weakness. After all, they’re always under attack by their colleagues and fans alike. A fighter cannot be a fragile individual or they will not survive the onslaught of other fighters trying to find a chink in their armour, whether it be physical or mental.
Masculinity also permeates MMA through to the women’s divisions, where female fighters must deal with the unregulated sexualisation that comes with participating in a male dominated sport as a woman. Whether they choose to reject sexualisation or use it as a marketing tool, it plays a large part in the careers of female fighters where perhaps it should not. In this piece I aim to explore the concept of masculinity within MMA’s chief organisation, the UFC, and realize what can be learned about the sport I love despite its flaws.
Under Attack
I’d like to open with a short autoethnography. I’m part of my university’s MMA club and train in various aspects of MMA an average of 3 times per week. I enjoy it greatly and wouldn’t change it for the world. I remember vividly, however, a time where I was forced to grapple with my own masculinity within even the casual, nonprofessional nature of my local community. We were training and working on various aspects of our fitness in a circuit when I felt my calf buckle in a deep pain. I knew my calf muscle had pulled. Yet for some deeply illogical reason I felt unable to stop the training circuit. I continued with the circuit, finding small moments of relief in-between sprints and jumps. It felt inconceivable that I would show weakness to my peers.
Only when speaking to my girlfriend, once the session had concluded, was I forced to confront the feelings that made me feel forced to continue. I felt and indeed feel comfortable with my peers, at least consciously. After much thought, the conclusion I feel forced to draw was that the nature of our sport itself influenced my inability to withdraw. I believe that the environment of a sparring gym, a setting in which all my peers are also my opponents, played a large part in my mentality.
Consider this but blown up on a much broader scale. Not only is your gym filled with people who are constantly analysing you for your weaknesses, but so are rival gyms. So are analysts. So are fight promotions, content creators, media members and the ever overcritical fanbase. Every action you commit is scrutinised to the nth degree. Pulling out of a fight due to injury is seen as “ducking” your opponent even with incredibly valid reason.
A recent example of this is Robert Whittaker having to pull out of his fight with Marvin Vettori at UFC275. This announcement was met by critics of Whittaker and fans of Vettori as an act of cowardice, as if Whittaker was simply afraid to test himself against Vettori and feigned an injury (ChefVolk0, 2022). Given the nature of MMA, by pulling out one isn’t simply refusing to compete with their opponent. They’re refusing to fight them. The opponent’s masculinity dominates that of the fighter forced to quit. Of course, this wasn’t the case and Whittaker would later take a rescheduled date (Fight Sports, 2022), but for some critics the narrative of timidity was already written.
Of course, a loss in combat sports is more than just a loss. You aren’t failing to score enough points. You’re getting beaten up in front of a bloodthirsty crowd. You deal with not only the embarrassment of letting your fans down but also letting another man (or woman) assert their dominance and will over you. In some cases, they remove you from consciousness or force you to quit in front of the people who spent money and travelled to support you. Darren Till touches on this in his post-fight interview following a victory over Kelvin Gastelum. Till says he was so terrified to fight that he “was trying to fake an injury […] because I just simply did not want to get in there” (Willis, 2019). Till as a fighter has always been a loud, boisterous character. Contrast this to the Till who screamed, when asked who he’d like to fight “f***ing anyone, […] I’m not scared of anyone. No one.” The juxtapose is stunning, seeing how the spirit of such a fighter can be broken after suffering a few losses, how the doubt sets in.
Dustin Poirier, too, has opened up following losses and been mocked by fellow fighters for it. Former training partner Colby Covington mocked Poirier relentlessly for opening up, coining the name “Dustin Soyrier” referring to the right-wing theory that soy lowers testosterone levels in humans (Schmo, 2021). Khalil Rountree broke down in a post-fight interview when asked about what he’d say to the next Khalil. “Your life matters, you can succeed, you can be heard” was the message Rountree shared between long pauses and sobs (MMAWeekly.com, 2022). Whilst media and fans supported Roundtree’s outburst, fellow UFC fighter Sean Strickland took to Twitter to mock the message, calling it the “gayest s**t I’ve ever seen […] this man is the definition of a PC BETA male” (Holland, 2022).
It feels remiss to write a piece on MMA without mentioning Conor McGregor. McGregor changed the game when it comes to ‘trash talk’ within MMA, pioneering a new era within the sport. The culmination of McGregor’s mental warfare was his fight against then Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo. McGregor and Aldo embarked on a 12-day media tour across the globe, allowing McGregor ample time to riddle Aldo’s mind with doubts and frustrations. The tour climaxed in Dublin, Ireland which was of course McGregor’s home turf, a place where the crowd ferociously backed McGregor and the pressure of the oncoming fight would be at its height for Aldo (UFC, 2015).
Not long before the fight, Aldo would be forced to withdraw from the bout due to injury and the bout would be rescheduled once McGregor beat his replacement opponent. This, of course, extended Aldo’s torment even more so. Throughout the build-up to the eventual fight, McGregor peppered Aldo with insults to his masculinity such as “bitch”, “little man” “pussy” and describing him as a fighter who “runs” and “hides” (Larone, 2020). The fight itself famously lasted a grand total of 13 seconds, with Aldo being knocked out cold after uncharacteristically rushing in. It is hard to say with certainty that Aldo’s downfall was a direct result of McGregor’s mental warfare, but it certainly appears so. Aldo’s style is typically measured. His fights often go the distance and he’s happy to sit back on a lead. His reckless abandonment when swinging at McGregor implies a great deal of emotion being carried into the fight, overextending and facing the consequences (UFC Fight Pass, n.d.). McGregor’s breaking of Aldo’s masculinity and confidence has been emulated and attempted by most every fighter since.
It is no wonder, then, that fighters may develop hard exteriors, choosing to play characters or conceal their emotions following losses. Every fighter must be a stone-cold killer, or a gangster, or some form of tough guy for fear of being broken like Aldo. There’s a cruel irony that one of the main driving forces of toxic masculinity within MMA is fear itself, something that would surely make a fighter a “pussy” or “bitch” to any who take the opportune break in façade.
Just Like Real Fighting
A worthy question when studying masculinity regarding MMA is why, of all the martial arts, has MMA developed such a reputation and indeed reality of toxic masculinity. A great many of the traditional martial arts place great emphasis on the stripping away of ego, replacing it with respect. In fact, many MMA fighters embody these qualities given that their profession is simply the mixing of many traditional martial arts. However, individual martial arts often have boundaries that restrict the fight from feeling too, for want of a better word, ‘real’. Whilst every punch thrown in boxing is very real, you can only throw punches. The boxing stance is incredibly heavy on one’s legs and doesn’t hold up so well when you add in, for instance, kicks. For a shining example look no further than Muhammad Ali vs Antonio Inoki, a mixed rules bout in which the great Ali spent most of his time getting his legs kicked to a degree almost requiring amputation (Bull, 2009). Given that, perhaps Kickboxing or Muay Thai is a realistic depiction of a street fight, given that it encompasses all legitimate categories of striking? Except, of course, that it omits grappling. UFC 1 was designed to be a style meets style gathering of all the martial arts. Royce Gracie, legendary Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, dominated the competition with little resistance as the strikers had no clue what to do once the fight hit the ground (Snowden, 2018). The same story can be told of Jiu Jitsu purists fighting those with strong takedown defence, and so on.
MMA, on the other hand, introduces no such regulations. True, headbutts and eye gouges are not permitted, but outside of such reasonable adjustments the sport is as close to a street fight as could be legally sanctioned. In fact, even that was difficult due to the marketing of the early UFC. The UFC initially played heavily into these underground masculine comparisons to real fighting, marketing it as “no holds, barred” and bragging of the “no rules” approach to MMA (The Economist, 2013). It is no wonder, then, that MMA has attracted a reputation for harsh masculine brutality and “aligned with aggressiveness, violence, [..] toxic -implicitly masculine- subjectivities” (Bowman, 2020).
Scott Atkinson inadvertently raises another idea in a piece written for The Guardian. The idea within his piece I wish to dissect is the argument raised by his jiu-jitsu coach, Matt Thornton. Matt makes a comparison between violence and sex arguing that if someone has an unhealthy relationship with sex, they “turn it into a fetish […] or they can demonize and repress it” (Atkinson, 2017). Matt’s metaphor is meant in this context to help explain Scott’s own violent impotence, but I would like to take it in the other direction. Following this theory there’s certainly a case to be made that fighters, who spend their lives surrounded by violence, may have developed an unhealthy relationship with it. I’d stipulate that instead of the lack of masculinity Scott feels, many fighters develop that fetishisation of masculinity and violence, willing them to embrace all the toxicity that comes with it. Domestic violence allegations and arrests with fighters are, tragically, all too common (Martin, 2021). Additionally, when those romantically involved with a fighter aren’t suffering their hypermasculinity, it is often members of the public (Pugh, 2019), press, or other fighters outside of the cage (O'Toole, 2019). Fighters appear to exhibit this hypermasculine pride, and in many cases their immediate response to perceived insult is to fight.
The Patriarchy of The Cage
It would be wrong to write a study of masculinity within the fight world and only discuss the impacts on men. As of 2020, 117 women competed in the UFC (Mitra, 2021) and the prevalence of masculinity within MMA is felt strongly by them also.
Some fighters play into the hypermasculinity given to them. One such example is that of Paige VanZant. UFC Heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes rather notoriously made note of the fact that VanZant was still receiving placement on the main card despite a rather lacklustre UFC career (Hendricks, 2020). The comment was met with claims of sexism, but Blaydes did touch upon a truth here. The UFC main card is reserved typically for strong contenders and champions within the UFC. In her final appearance within the UFC, Paige shared the main card with 7 former or current champions and Jorge Masvidal, who is one of the UFC’s top Pay Per View stars. Paige was not a fighter close to the same calibre, exiting the UFC with an 8-5 record. Since leaving the UFC, VanZant has launched a fan site drawing clear comparisons to OnlyFans, clearly aware of the market for her body and feeding it as such (Lemoncelli, 2022).
This is not an attempt to ‘slut shame’ Paige VanZant. I argue not that there is anything inherently wrong with using her looks to get ahead of competition, only noting that she did so. VanZant cleverly recognised the hypermasculine environment that MMA was and decided to do what she could, with the tools she had, to improve her career. Paige’s sexualisation is being referenced here to note how the masculine dominance of MMA has impacted women within the sport and how they can adapt to work within the hypermasculine sentiment that is so ever-present. A paper for Cairn.info mentions that VanZant has benefitted from the conflation of beauty and strength, the idea that to be marketable to a male audience a woman must first be beautiful. It notes that so long as this stipulation remains, “fighters thought to be beautiful will be at an advantage over those who are not” (Alex Channon, 2018)
Two-time champion Rose Namajunas takes a different approach to the presence of masculinity within MMA. Instead of leaning into the conventionally beautiful approach like many of her colleagues, Namajunas decided to shave her head in an act of both defiance and practicality. “It’s a fight not a beauty pageant. S**t’s in my way at practice” (Sharma, 2021). Namajunas is a conventionally attractive woman, being the face of the “Beauty in Strength” advert for The Ultimate Fighter Season 20 (at a time when she still had her hair) (FOX, 2014). Clearly Namajunas had the opportunity to play the same game as VanZant and it may be somewhat relevant that the moment at which she shaved her head was in the build-up to her fight with Paige herself. The shaved head, whether Namajunas intended so or not, creates a stark contrast between the conventional beauty of Vanzant and Namajunas’ more traditional fighter look. Both can be seen to work within the frame of masculinity however, as Namajunas adopting a more traditionally masculine look plays into a more warrior-like, Furiosa style.
Methods
Most of my work during this essay has come from a great deal of content analysis. I’ve examined videos, reports, interviews and academic articles regarding the state of masculinity within MMA. Given the niche nature of the sport alongside how few within it have much interest into the deeper nature of identity or masculinity, these were sometimes hard to find. There is surprisingly little written on the sexualisation of women in MMA, despite it being a frequently discussed topic within the community. Interviews and reports were often easier to uncover and source within my work. However, I knew that I needed to include the autoethnography as part of my study given that it was ultimately what prompted me to explore deeper into the topic. It serves a purpose in opening the wider idea of inherent hostility within MMA whilst also showing diversity within my methodology.
As mentioned previously, the limitations on this study mainly stem from the lack of genuine interest in the subject from voices within the sport. The academic writing is often rather dated given the fast-moving nature of the sport. Thus, I found a great deal of value in articles and interviews written about fighters’ own experiences and drawing my own inferences from these.
Conclusion
Over the course of this piece, I believe that I have managed to shed some light on the unhealthy levels of masculinity within Mixed Martial Arts. The mental warfare game popularised by figures such as Chael Sonnen and Conor McGregor force fighters to live in a constant state of awareness of their weaknesses. Those who do break this trend face ridicule and mockery for it. The comparisons drawn to real fighting creates the illusion that this isn’t a sport but instead a street fight and those that surround with the sport are susceptible to developing unhealthy relationships with such violence.
Or perhaps it really is simply the notion that ‘fighting is for men’. Perhaps brutal combat is inherently something that resonates with the sex who for years would be sent to fight in wars, protect their family, hunt for their survival. I’d argue that it isn’t so simple, but I cannot say with certainty. I’d like to think that, in time, the sport will address these issues. The UFC has yet to have an openly gay male fighter and when that happens (because it will happen), it is sure to challenge the masculinity of fans and fighters alike. I believe that the first step to destigmatising the sport is understanding why it is so swamped in harmful beliefs relating to masculinity. I hope that I’ve contributed to this understanding by writing such a piece.
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