MMA analysis: Top-heavy, no depth - The quiet decline of the UFC’s heavyweight division

Heavyweight MMA was once the most prestigious division in the sport. Now it’s a shadow of its former self, with little hope of improvement on the horizon.

Heavyweight MMA should, on paper, be one of the most exciting spectacles in combat sports. Two 230+lb martial artists, having trained their whole lives in unarmed combat, cage closed, coming out to handle their business.

In a division where everyone is big enough to carry one-shot knockout power, these aren’t the fights in which you want to nip out to put the kettle on.  

Sports News Blitz writer Ollie Hughes explores the decline of the UFC’s heavyweight division and how its fall off can be explained.

A brawler vs a grappler 

At UFC 325, fan favourite and Aussie darling, Tai Tuivasa, faced off against Brazilian Tallison Teixeira on a Sydney card brimming with local talent.

What followed wasn’t the worst heavyweight fight we’ve ever seen, but it was indicative of a division that is severely in need of some athleticism.

The fight started promisingly, with Tai moving forward to try and land a big shot. Teixeira smartly took the fight to the ground, eager to impose his will in the grappling.

In round two, Tai came out more measured and technical but slowly slipped into his brawler ways, taking a few on the chin, only to again end the round on his back.

Teixeira, the three-time national BJJ champion, maintained position but failed to inflict any damage while on top.

The frustration starts 

The third is when the real frustration started, with both guys landing heavy shots but lacking the cardio to make any meaningful attempt at a finish. 

Clinching became an opportunity to catch a few seconds' breather, the pair utterly exhausted.

With almost zero urgency, the fight ended with both fighters stumbling over one another, sucking air, unable to rise to their feet after the bell. Tallison claimed victory by majority decision.

Tai will always have a place in the hearts of fans for KO’ing known abuser and all-around villain, Greg Hardy. But this is his sixth loss in a row, and despite only being 32, a spring chicken by heavyweight standards, his future in MMA looks uncertain.

The baddest men on the planet

This fight is by no means an isolated incident. It highlights the enormous gap in skill and athleticism between the top of the division and those middling below. 

The best heavyweights in the world are a true sight to behold. Naturally large athletes with killer finishing instincts, the number of people who would even stand a chance in unarmed combat against these fighters is infinitesimally small. 

Whether it’s Tom Aspinall’s speed and footwork, Ciryl Gane’s fluidity or Sergei Pavlovich’s economy of violence, these are the baddest men on the planet.

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A two-speed division 

But below them, the drop-off is stark. Relying on size, toughness and the ever-present possibility of a KO, they lack the athletic base or technical depth to sustain five-round fights. 

This gap has created a two-speed division, with the elites operating on modern MMA sensibilities, and the rest still fighting in the dark ages of 90’s no holds barred competitions.

To understand why this is the case, it helps to visualise the global population as an enormous pie chart, with naturally large, athletic men taking up a very small sliver of this.

It’s all about talent pools

When you further specify the number of men who match this criteria and also want to be punched in the head for a living, the number becomes smaller and smaller.

It comes down to talent pools, and the number of large men who are willing to put their bodies through MMA training isn’t a particularly large one.

And who could blame them, when they could potentially earn millions more competing in a different sport? 

MMA: the poor man’s sport 

It’s well established now that MMA is the poor man’s game compared to boxing, American football and the NBA, where the money attracts the true genetic freaks of the athletic population.

Not only this, but MMA at the highest level requires a familiarity with pain and violence in a way that very few people are wired for. 

What we’re left with are undisciplined and flabby middleweights that are comfortable fighting a few weight classes higher if it means they don’t have to eat clean while outside camp.

Whilst this may seem harsh, we’re not too far removed from an era when the heavyweight division was stacked with killers, not just confined to outliers at the top.

The division that once was

Less recent fans will remember legends like Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, Fabricio Werdum, Andrei Arlovski, Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem. While they weren’t always the most well-rounded fighters, they brought years of high-level experience in other combat sports.

Even Brock Lesnar, for all his limitations, made the division a spectacle and brought a crossover appeal that none of his contemporaries could match.

Before this, the Japanese promotion Pride, which dominated the scene in the 00’s, set its own benchmark that still lingers to this day, with names like Mirko Cro Cop, the Noguira brothers and Fedor Emelianenko. These are the pioneers who raised the bar for everyone.

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Rose-tinted glasses?

While it’s always easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses, this generation undoubtedly left a high watermark that leaves the current roster seemingly lacking.

This isn’t nostalgia. The skill floor was just higher.

Watching heavyweights now, this seems like a distant memory. The UFC seems comfortable with a division where KO’s cover up technical flaws, low expectations seemingly baked into its core. 

A division on life support 

With the division’s last great fight (Aspinall vs Gane) ending in crushing disappointment for all, the heavyweight division may be on life support. But the case isn’t terminal.

The pathway to a once-again glorious division won’t be easy, but it surely involves a raise in pay that reflects the dangers these athletes put themselves in.

Until the sport becomes an attractive first choice for the elite, one in a million kind of athletes, rather than a last roll of the dice, the skill disparity will only grow.

A sad decline 

Heavyweight MMA hasn’t collapsed, but it has undoubtedly thinned. A handful of extraordinary fighters is not enough to carry an entire division.

When fights like Tuivasa vs Teixeira stop surprising anyone, it’s a sad state for a division that once prided itself on near-superhuman exceptionalism. And accepting that as the norm seems like quite the admission of decline.

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