A year in rewind - looking back at 2015

I'm back bitches! Since 2015 has reached it's end and all upsets and major fights occured, I figured It might be time for me to finally write something again. So, as the title sugests, today we look at the wild ride that was 2015.




The Money

According to Lorenzo Ferttita, 2015 was a record setter for UFC in revenue income, generating as much as $600 million! I personally belive that is largely due to a couple of factors. The Reebok sponsorship deal and 2 fighters: Ronda Rousey  and one charismatic loudmouth Irishman, Conor McGregor. 

Reebok money

Reebok deal, as controversial as it may be, brought a major monetary player to the UFC. They picked popular fighters for exclusive sponosorship deals and brought attention to the UFC, which no doubtley spiked up UFC's numbers. Same goes for the former Women's BW Champions and the current Featherweight Champion.

Judo money

Before her shocking loss to Holy Holm at UFC 193, everybody was talking about this bronze medal winning Olympic judoka turned undfeated female MMA fighter that was making the sport look way to easy. She was gaining massive mainstream media exposre. She was in movies, magazines, commericals. EVERYWHERE!

She was even on the cover of Men's Fitness!  source

Irish leprechaun money

Conor McGregor seemingly came out of nowhere and swept the division by storm. His antics, trash talk, persona and charisma made him the breakout star of the last year. The two PPV events that he headlined made $7,2 million and $10,2 million, he got his own press conference after he won the championship belt at UFC194 

The dethroning of Kings and one Queen

There is always a bigger fish-Qui Gon Jinn 

One of the biggest surprises to come in 2015 was the dethroning of dominant champions.
Anthony Pettis, Chris Weidman, Jose Aldo, Cain Velasquez and Ronda Rousey all lost their belts in 2015. This just goes to prove no fighter is unbeatable or untouchable. Jose Aldo was the Featherweight kingpin for the good part of the decade untill a loudmouth Irishman came along and changed all that in 13 seconds. Ronda Rousey was UFC's pride and joy. Olympic Judoka, good looking, lots of mainstream exposure, undefeated in MMA with all but one fight lasting longer than 5 minutes. Rondamania was running wild and there was no stopping it. That is untill a certain undefeated former kickboxer came along and dominated Ronda for 2 rounds before knocking the champ out with a brutal highkick.

  Though seemingly of peacful heart, Qui Gon Jinn does resort to throat chpping bad guys from time to time 



Nick Diaz vs the Athletic Comission

UFC's bad boy made some serious headlines this year. He failed a a drug test for the third time and things were not looking all that good for the UFC veteran coming into his September hearing before the athletic comission. However, in a surprising turn of events Nick's defence tean had one hell of an argument and convincing case as to why it happend. His really well thought out defense pointed out some inconsistencies in the drug testing procedure but the comission wanted none of it. Nick got a 5 year suspension. Fans, fighters, entire MMA community and various celebreties including Cher(yes, THE Cher) were at an all time high outrage. Protest for such a harsh punishment even got an  White House petion started and succesfully filled. Though Nick is still offically suspended for 5 years, the talks about a potential setelment and sentence reducing are getting louder and Nick Diaz will more than likely fight again soon. The fact that the comission members are getting death threats probably has something to do with it with them being so open about reaching a settelment.



UFC partners with Reebok

The Reebok&UFC partnership ushered a new era of mma, an era of near endless controversy. From the misspelling of fighters names on their fight kits to innacurate geographical representation of countries, the clothing giant didn't cease to make MMA fans angry in 2015. The moneteray sponsorship system that made Brendan Schaub retire and the firing of fan favored UFC cutman Jacob "stich" Duran didn't help their case either. Reebok's Michael Lunardelli went on the MMA hour several times and tried his best in defending the slip ups. He pointed the finger at the UFC as the reason for their happening, but nothing really helped, and the gaffs continued.

"This is the best thing in the world, not only for the UFC, for the athletes in the sport"- Dana White

Pride legends "calling it a day"

Mirko Cro Cop and Minotauro Nogueira, two of the top3 best heavyweights of their time finally decided it's time retire. Though the Croat got out on his own terms on a high note, avenging his brtual loss to Gabriel Gonzaga that marked the begining of his decline, his retierment left a bitter taste in the mouths of many fans. Just days after Mirko withdrew from his  UFC: Seoul match and annnounced his retirement from MMA, news struck that he was under provisionary suspension by USADA.Later on his official website, Mirko explained his side of the story. His suspension was due to him consuming a small dosage of human growth hormone in hopes of healing an injured shoulder.
The war torn Brazilian wasn't off such luck. He lost 3 of his last fights to Fabricio Werdum, Roy Nelson and Stefan Struve, Much like Mirko, Minotauro cited numerous surgeries and injuries as reasoning for his retirment.


Fedor Emelianenko un-retiring

SIDE NOTE: I wrote this just before NYE, Fedor won, ofcurse. and Rizin turned out to be pretty awesome!

Speaking of top 3 Pride heavyweights, the undisputed #1 hw of his era decided to make a final run in MMA, Altough MMA fans was keeping their fingers crossed for him to finally sign with the UFC, no such luck was had. Fedor signed with the Japan's new MMA org, RIZIN FF. Rizin just had the first day of their 3 day tournament/debut event with Fedor fighting on the last day (NYE) of the event. Since I already wrote about Fedor's return to MMA, there's really not much left to say about this issue. His opponent is an inexperienced kickboxer but a very unexperienced MMA fighter with just 2 fights under his belt, while Fedor on the other hand. is one of the most dominant heavyweight fighters of all time.

Obligatory funny Fedor pic

Debuting fighters 

UFC's newcomers had a great year, with a lot of talent quickly transforming into new superstars ready to take the MMA world by storm. Aleksandra Albu, Makwan Amirhkani, Sage Northcutt. Joseph Duffy. Karolina Kowalkiewicz and of course the new Woman's Bantamweight Champion, Holly Holm are among many other 2015's debutants that made an impact on the scene and made their presence known right from the start.



Anti-doping testing in the UFC

So, UFC has decided to "clean up the sport" and make random drug tests more frequent with the ultimate goal being that they test every fighter on their roster. So, what could have possibly gone wrong? How about fighters testing positive for banned substances, a lot. Anderson Silva, Hector Lombard, Jon Jones, Nick Diaz all tested positive for banned substances. The silver linings in all of this was that more random testing was going to be performed and performance enchaining drugs would not being tolerated. Dana White even held a special press conference addressing the numerous failed substance abuse tests reveling that they would be doing random drug test even more frequently and that the punishments will be even more severe. The bad new was that with drug testing becoming more frequent, more fighters would be emerging with failed drug tests. UFC MW Tim Kennedy said on the subject: "It's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better". I'll agree with him, more tests will more then likely mean more fighters testing positive, which will affect the fight cards. However, this is a long term process and growing pains are a part of it.

That's all for me. I'll be doing a sequel to this article in the next few days with what 2016 brings and what to look out for in the following 12 months that are sure to be even more crazy than the previous ones. Condit/Lawler is today so 2016 is starting of with quite a bang! I figured out how Instagram works so I started posting stuff over there . So you can check that out, my twitter is still active and in use so you can follow me there .My facebook is still alive so give it a like so I can start putting stuff over there as well and if that wasn't enough I also started posting content on Viral MMA fb page, check that out as well. Unill our paths cross again, I wish you a happy and successful new year!