Opinion: UFC’s Irish Explosion, an Outlier or a Trend?

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Editor's note: The views & opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

Thanks to the remarkable ascent of Conor McGregor, Ireland has in quick order become a hotbed for MMA. At UFC 189 on July 11, the MGM Grand Garden Arena was packed with travelers from the Emerald Isle who made Las Vegas a suburb of Dublin for the evening. Meanwhile, UFC Fight Night “Poirier vs. Duffy” this Saturday sold out in under a minute with limited star power and two McGregor rivals facing off in the main event. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is hot right now in Ireland, and it’s a very market-specific interest, as fan attention for the card will be exponentially higher there than anywhere else.

This sort of nationalistic/ethnic appeal is familiar to fans of combat sports. The world’s other top combat sport, boxing, has heavily relied on ethnic fan bases to drive interest for years. The biggest boxing event of the fall features that sport’s most storied rivalry when Mexico’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez faces Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto. Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton and Carl Froch have similarly appealed specifically to the United Kingdom market. Boxers have often been defined first by their nationality or ethnicity, and those ties are relied upon to sell the sport.

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Japanese MMA was similarly driven by the competition between Japanese fighters and their rivals from around the world, just like Japanese pro wrestling before it. Certain stars from outside Japan eventually became embraced as honorary Japanese over time, but it was native stars like Nobuhiko Takada, Kazushi Sakuraba, Hidehiko Yoshida and Norifumi Yamamoto who drove the sport’s popularity in Japan. When that well dried up, the sport’s popularity in Japan collapsed.

The UFC and North American MMA in general have historically been different. The sport came into being with Royce Gracie as its first big star, and he wasn’t viewed as just a star for Brazilians. He came to be beloved across the board. Georges St. Pierre was particularly popular in Canada but embraced by UFC fans all over. Certain fighters like B.J. Penn, Alexander Gustafsson, Cain Velasquez and Michael Bisping are attractions in given regions, but they can be featured on a UFC card practically anywhere and garner interest.

This isn’t to suggest the UFC is some sort of post-racial and post-ethnic utopia. Certain fighters have a harder time becoming full-fledged superstars for reasons that aren’t entirely fair. MMA fans are tribal just like people in general are tribal. However, once UFC fighters become stars, they tend to become stars wherever the company runs. It isn’t a particularly provincial sport in that way.

The question is then whether the UFC is likely to become more reliant on ethnic stars over time. There are reasons to believe this might be the case. The UFC’s high volume of shows means that fans pick and choose what to watch more than ever before. That makes it easier for certain cards to fly under the radar for the broader base while still seeming very important to niche groups.

UFC Fight Night “Poirier vs. Duffy” is an example of that trend, but an even better example is the upcoming card in South Korea. It won’t resonate in much of the world but has a number of fighters, like Dong Hyun Kim and Yoshihiro Akiyama (billed as Choo Sung-hoon in tribute to his Korean ancestry), with very special appeal in that country.

Another reason to believe the UFC might be driven more by ethnic loyalties over time is the company’s attempt to set up unique television shows for different markets. “The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America,” “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil,” “The Ultimate Fighter: China” and “Road to UFC: Japan” were viewed by very few fans outside their respective markets. Each created regional stars who will over time be featured and emphasized in specific geographical areas. That sort of system wasn’t in place in the past.

Finally, there is just the growth of the sport around the world in general. As MMA fighters come from a broader range of regions, it’s only natural that fans are going to get behind the best fighter from their area when in the past their choices were primarily limited to Americans, Brazilians and a few other nationalities.

While the future may be filled with UFC fighters who are popular in their region but anonymous elsewhere, that certainly hasn’t happened yet. McGregor is particularly popular in Ireland, but he has moved ratings and pay-per-view buys in the United States quite well. Likewise, the UFC’s other top fighters tend to be either popular in general or not. The most notable outlier may be McGregor’s rival, Jose Aldo, who has drawn strong live gates and television ratings in Brazil but has not been a needle mover elsewhere despite his longstanding dominance.

There are key structural factors that work against the UFC developing boxing’s reliance on ethnic stars. Unlike boxing, the UFC has set champions in every weight class. Those who reach the top are much more likely to become drawing cards and those who don’t are much less likely. Meanwhile in boxing, the preponderance of weight classes and championships makes it easy for a fighter from a specific area to defend a championship for years and hold onto a claim as the best. It’s harder -- albeit not impossible -- for a fighter to last as the local icon when he has firmly been established as less than the best. McGregor might be a test of this if he starts losing fights in the next couple years.

The UFC’s card structure also makes a landscape dominated by ethnic stars unlikely. The organization can and does run Fox Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass shows in various markets showcasing local stars, but the emphasis is clearly on the deeper pay-per-view cards that feature championship fights. Fighters who are successful enough move to those top pay-per-view slots that denote the biggest and most important competitors in the sport. Likewise, fans recognize the smaller shows for what they are.

For the time being, regional allegiances still play a relatively limited role in UFC matchmaking. In spite of the success of the Irish example, that’s probably a good thing. Having top fighters who are perceived as basically universal stars broadens the appeal of the sport in the long-term. It also makes the sport less likely to fall into a boom-or-bust cycle when the local heroes fall. The present system doesn’t really need fixing, even if a gradual evolution is already under way.