MMA Is Ripe for Fight Fixing (Patreon)

By Sam (@StuffFromSam)

You ask a boxing historian if MMA is ripe for fight fixing, and they'll say yes. You ask a classical economist, they'll say the same thing. You ask a behavioral economist, a Wall Street trader, Wall Street Bets, a muay Thai gambler, a baseball fan, a pro wrestling fan, a poor fighter, or even a socialist, and they'll all say yes. Why? Because the pay is too low and the gambling odds are too enticing. The only ones who'd probably say no are the fans because they don't want to believe what they're seeing isn't "as real as it gets," since that's what the UFC has promoted since its inception.

My article isn't to prove this happens; my claim is that all the INCENTIVES are there for this to happen.

In the case of pro wrestling—which actually started out as "shoots," or real submission wrestling—when fight fixing happened, you called it a "work" because it was not the norm. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to label it at all. Believe it or not, pro wrestling as a legitimate sport was at one time the most popular sport in the US as far as attendance and viewership. Yet predetermining matches (enhanced by a lack of regulations) became so lucrative, it became the norm.

Boxing has a long history with not only organized crime but gambling (much like muay Thai today). What drastically reduced fight fixes in boxing isn't because the sport cleaned itself up or because regulators came in, it was because of pay-per-views and mega paydays. The only reason to fix a fight in boxing is to make money gambling. Yet, even still, many things can go sideways in a fixed fight. You can only control so much. But once you had multimillion-dollar guaranteed paydays, it made more sense for the mobsters already embedded in the sport to become promoters and managers to get a GUARANTEED cut of those paydays. Managers and promoters can LEGALLY rip off fighters and get ultra-wealthy without having to fix fights.

What then is the perfect environment for fight fixing? Low pay plus skewed odds. MMA overall has low pay, but prelim fighters on average probably make less a year than the average fan. Furthermore, it's in the prelim matches of big promotions where you'll see some of the most significant mismatches. 30-1 and 40-1 odds are not hard to find in the prelims and even in the less visible main card match-ups. Since most MMA viewership skips prelim and undercard matches, few eyes pay attention to what happens there.

If you've been watching recent televised MMA events to even listening to MMA podcasts, gambling is the new meta. It's very much becoming not only a fixture; you're essentially told to gamble. It's also now much easier to gamble here in the US as well. Making money on a predetermined match is not only accessible—it's convenient. This ease of access also makes gambling decentralized. You don't need bookies or a mobster; you can do it yourself. With so much money moving in gambling, especially since the pandemic, no one will notice a few thousand dollars being placed on an underdog to win by submission in a particular round. In fact, that type of money movement is expected.

The casinos and sportsbooks price the fight fixing in, and they know they'll still make a lot of money anyway. In fact, you'll notice on the MMA broadcasts, they often talk about big money moving in on an underdog. They flex those types of bets because they make their money on volume. They're scalpers; they'll make their money on the transactions. The MMA promotions don't care because the sportsbooks will pay them regardless to promote their services.

Suppose you're making $4,000 to fight and another $4,000 to win. If you lose, you lose out on an extra $4,000. However, if you bet on your opponent to win, and let's say they're a 30-1 underdog, but also 40-1 dog to win by submission, even putting $1,000 to win and $1,000 to win by submission, you could win a possible $70,000. What's better, an extra $4,000 or an extra $70,000? Even if you don't get submitted and lose by KO, you still make an extra $30,000. You can even place a bet on every type of finish to spread out your risk. You'll still make more money than you lose and more money than what the promoters will pay you. This type of self-determining free-market logic is what libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism are all about. Are there libertarians and ancaps in MMA? Didn't you all pearl-clutch when you found out how MANY there were in MMA? Let's think like grown-ups.

From the 2008 Financial Crisis to the recent GameStop fiasco, we see evidence of manipulation even in the financial sector. These sectors are much more heavily regulated than MMA. Not to mention all the verified rigging in baseball, basketball, and even football. Why do big-time gamblers love college sports so much? Because it's more competitive or because players play for free?

Isn't capitalism all about finding the most efficient ways to make money? None of this goes against capitalist ethos; it only reinforces it. Yet, with all this manipulation around us, MMA fans, probably more than any other fanbase, are oblivious to this possibility. They've drunk the Kool-Aid. Hey, another thing that's very much been covered in MMA and martial arts: cults.

Perhaps the other reason why people think MMA is too honorable or pure to do any fixing—even though we all know the pay is shit and the bosses suck, and there's no athlete protection or incentive not to fix a fight—is that we still project the idea of "honor" from martial arts over to MMA. But where did we get this idea of honor in martial arts? Mostly from entertainment media such as movies, TV shows, and comic books. But it simply can't only be ass-kicking that makes one honorable in Western media. No. Usually, the cop, CIA/FBI agent, or special forces operative is also the martial arts expert. So we project the jingoist honor we have for actors of state violence onto martial arts and onto MMA. (The MMA movie trope is military guy turned MMA fighter.) The internalized problematic belief is: MMA would never do fight fixing because cops are too honorable.

In my attempt to explain why fight fixing is possible in MMA, I ended up explaining everything about the reactionary culture of martial arts. How did this seamlessly happen? Because—money. Money is the string that ties together all the different reactionary vectors not only in combat sports and martial arts but also in the world. Because it's not just MMA promotions that create incentives to fix fights. Suppose you're an American making below minimum wage as a fighter, without healthcare and other social safety nets, plus mounting student debt on top of the debt you incurred to "chase your dream" as America told you to. Why wouldn't you gamble on yourself? Isn't that what fighters do anyway? Add in all the injuries, including to the brain. What do you really have to lose? I'd say nothing. It's no different than all the recent short squeezes, using the manipulative tactics institutions use against you right back at them. But much like the GameStop short squeeze, in the end, the house always wins. You can only use this tactic for so long. As even Dana White puts it, fighting is not a career—it's a window.