What if MMA Was Added to the Olympics? - UFC 4 Simulation

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Published on August 21, 2023 9:30:04 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyZ5-OM5Hp0

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EA Sports UFC 4 (2020)

Duration: 51:50

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Me rambling on about how I think MMA in the Olympics would work:
First of all, you’d need plenty of countries, organizations, and fighters working cohesively to pull it off. That’s a given and maybe the most challenging part.
When it comes to picking which countries/fighters should be in it you can’t afford to have a long tournament of fights or selection process. So you’d probably need to use an agreed upon ranking system including all fighters of all organizations, which already exists, to decide which fighters would get an invite to be in the Olympics.

I think the format of it should only include at a maximum 8 fighters per weight class when you’re ready to get started. And just like in this video I would stick with a single elimination tournament using 3-5 minute rounds until the medal fights.
Obviously you can’t do it in one night like the early days of the UFC so you’d have to plan it out wisely.
I think the round of 8 should be done 8 months out from the actual Olympics and the semi finals should be done 4 months before the Olympics are set to start. When it comes to the venue, just use an arena in the city where the Olympics are set to take place.
I think it’s fair to assume that any city that is going to host the Olympics would have no problem selling out a fight card of the best fighters in the world. The quarterfinals and semifinals would almost act as a warmup for the Olympics in that city.
Realistically, the semi final losers would win bronze to limit unnecessary damage. And you would only have the gold medal fights hosted during the Olympics.
I think it would also be fair that every competing fighter should have a backup fighter ready to go if injuries were to stop them from making it to their next fight, rather than having last minute replacements come in from other countries.

Money would be a big issue in general. Starting with the fact that Olympic athletes aren’t paid. But I think the fighters could be well compensated just through their ad deals, especially now that some rules have been changed for the better that allows Olympic athletes more freedom when it comes to advertising. And considering that UFC fighters are very limited as to how they sponsor themselves on fight day, I think the sponsoring companies would have a ton of success sponsoring these athletes, which could lead to fighters possibly being paid more than they could ever imagine making from a fight purse.
You could also have the organizations that the competing fighters are coming out of pay their athletes for participating in this and add on bonuses for winning. Which I think is fair considering that this would bring more eyes to their organizations than any ad campaign ever could.

Another spin off on how this could happen is the organizations themselves could host the quarterfinals and semi finals, with Olympic judges, then provide the bronze medal and gold medal bouts to be held in the Olympics. With this method I’d hope that the participating organizations could come together, hosting the 1st and 2nd round events, with them profiting off of it, and splitting up the profits based on the percentage of fighters representing each organization. Also I’m sure the Olympics would want their cut of the pie too.
There’d be some fun paperwork there for sure. But with this method the fighters could be paid a set amount for the 1st 2 rounds, and considering there would only be 4 fighters per weight class actually in the olympics, the endorsement money they would receive from that point on would be even greater.

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