UFC Graveyard

A History of Abandoned Ideas

In the world of mixed martial arts, a lot of nonsense gets said, especially at the organizational level. “ONE FC is a global phenomenon with billions of concurrent daily views,” “Fighters are paid a reasonable wage,” “Nobuyuki Sakakibara is not associated with the yakuza.” However, when it comes to pure inundation with stupid garbage, be it claims, proclamations, or guarantees, no MMA organization comes close to UFC in terms of sheer volume.

Over the years, the UFC has made a lot of bold claims about the nature of the business. Because there is an event every week and a new dumb fighter controversy every other week, it’s hard to keep track of these claims. As such, when they are provenly demonstrably wrong or false, it tends to get ignored or forgotten. So I’ve traipsed through the graveyard of past UFC announcements to find the best dead promises. While there are several instances of weird sponsorship deals that have ended in this list, I’m not simply recounting every time the UFC partnered with a tactical butthole cream manufacturer. This is more of a montage of Gene Belcher proudly declaring “This is me now!” These were supposed to be a new, defining part of the UFC at its core, going forward.


Crypto.com Fighter Bonus

In 2021, the UFC partnered with Crypto.com in a 10-year, $175 million sponsorship deal to make the cryptocurrency site the apparel partner. This meant the fighters had to wear a t-shirt with the company’s logo on it, and the UFC made $175 million. Not particularly amenable to the fighters, but so it goes.

In April 2022, the UFC announced a new partnership with Crypto.com. This new deal, which was intended to benefit the fighters, was for a trio of bonuses, voted on by the fans, at each PPV event. First place received $30,000 worth of Bitcoin, while 2nd got $20,000 and 3rd place took home $10,000, starting at UFC 273 on April 9th, 2022.

Things already took a turn at UFC 274 on May 7, 2022, when Rose Namajunas took home the first place bonus. She faced Carla Esparza in a rematch for the Strawweight title, and what ensued across 25 minutes was one of the worst title fights in UFC history. Did trolls sabotage the vote? Did an overwhelming number of casual fans simply vote for Rose because she was the only recognizable name? It’s unclear, but it’s another instance of a popular vote being a bad idea because the population is generally very stupid (See also: US Presidential elections).

Five short months later, the bonus had disappeared entirely. UFC 278 on August 20, 2022 was the final PPV event that listed a Crypto.com bonus. UFC 279 on September 10, 2022, made no mention of fan voting. The company’s own cryptocoin took a valuation nosedive between those months and there were claims that the sponsor had not made payments in months (Congratulations, Crypto.com, you are just like every other sponsor in the history of MMA).

Rest assured, though, fighters are still contractually mandated to wear the Crypto.com walkout shirts. There are still a few sacred things left in MMA.

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Fights in the Meta-Verse

In 2022, Dana White was on the Full Send podcast with his favorite group of Specialiest Boys, the Nelk Bros. He brought up the idea of UFC fights taking place in the Meta-Verse. Did he mean an actual fight that could be watched via a VR broadcast? Maybe virtual avatars of real fighters would be pitted against each other, a gargantuan fracas the likes of which we haven’t seen since the great Second Life Slap Fight of 2006. Imagine it, dream matchups like Alexandre Pantoja versus Islam Makhachev, something that throws the idea of weight classes and size disparities out of the virtual window. Or, even better, Jon Jones versus an actual, ranked heavyweight! Mind boggling to consider, I know.

Alas, this glorious utopia of digital fights is still but a dream. Sure, the UFC and Meta provide weird, unasked for fan experiences, and the ability to stream fights via the VR headset and a FightPass subscription. However, when it comes to proprietary fights only available to the Metaverse, that’s yet to come to fruition. As of this writing, if you wish to see polygonal representations of people with a flat affect fight, you’ll have to watch Mark Zuckerberg in a jiu-jitsu competition.

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Leaving the Apex Behind

The UFC Apex opened in 2019 and got a ton of use during the Covid-19 pandemic when even places like Florida were shut down. A funny thing happened afterwards, though. The UFC realized it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to just run Fight Night after Fight Night in the Apex. Sure, they missed out on site fees and gate revenue, but expenses are way down when you already own the land, the building, and it is set up for the UFC’s preferred style of spartan production values. Besides, the UFC was making plenty of money simply providing content for ESPN.

In 2022, the UFC put in a motion with the Las Vegas city council to expand the Apex, with the intent of adding 1,000 seats, providing more parking, and putting in space for concessions. As of 2025, the Apex is so bereft of space that family members of fighters are only allowed to sit and watch their relative’s fight and must immediately vacate their seats at the conclusion. Fighters, similarly, are kicked out of the venue after their bout is over, often stumbling into the cold Nevada air, concussed and shoeless.

Currently, every few months, Dana says the UFC is going to stop going to the Apex so damn much. The next time they actually cut back on Apex dates will be the first time this actually happens. Dana even recently lambasted a news article claiming the Apex was going to increase capacity to nearly 10,000 seats. This turned out not to be true, but only because I’m pretty sure the UFC realized they don’t need to put any additional money into the Apex.

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Toyo Tires KO of the Year

Back in 2019, the UFC announced the UFC Honors initiative, a program designed to recognize the outstanding athletes in a given year of competition. There were two branches of awards, President’s Choice and Fan Choice. President’s Choice honors the Performance and Fight of the Year, with Dana White selecting from the year’s list of Performance and Fight of the Night award winners for each event. Fan Choice selects Knockout, Submission, Event, and Comeback of the Year, with any and every fight open to fan vote.

While it is simply prestigious enough to be a finalist, surely the award winners receive something truly special to commemorate their performances, right?

They get a trophy and a free set of Toyo tires. Tires which, at best, come to maybe $2,000 for all four? Last year, Max Holloway won Performance, Fight, and Knockout of the Year, all for his UFC 300 win over Justin Gaethje. So he’s just got three trophies and twelve tires. That’s too many tires, even if you’re smashing them with a sledgehammer and flipping them for exercise, that’s too many tires. Give the man some more damn money!

Full disclosure, UFC Honors is still running, with fighters still allegedly getting the tires. I assumed it had ended because it sounded so cheap, to give someone tires for having the best knockout of the year, but it looks to be chugging along, no end in sight.

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BattleMotors Presents: The Light Heavyweight Division

Back in 2021, the UFC announced a sponsorship deal with Crane Carriers, a BattleMotors truck company to become the official “light duty truck of the UFC” and also representing UFC’s Light Heavyweight Division. With a name like BattleMotors, surely this company makes heavy duty off-road vehicles, or explosion-proof military grade troop transports. Nope! BattleMotors makes electric garbage trucks.

Nothing better exemplifies the unique blend of skill, speed, and power exhibited by Light Heavyweights like the fleet of BattleMotors dump trucks and recycling vehicles. When you think about the biggest, most decorated UFC Light Heavyweight champion of all time, Jon Jones, moving fluidly from outside striking range, to devastating clinch striking and grappling, into takedowns, ground and pound, and submissions, keep the image of a hot, hot truck, filled to the brim with wet garbage, broiling in the summer sun right next to him in your mind’s eye. These two things are interchangeable. UFC Light Heavyweights, BattleMotors. Two hundred five pound fighters, trash truck. Borderline heavyweights trying to reinvent their careers, *bweep bweep bweep* A LARGE VEHICLE IS REVERSING, TAKE CAUTION. Big middleweights tired of dieting, electric vehicle, rattling around with one thousand aluminum cans, just a little bit of backwash sloshing around.

UFC fighters had BattleMotors sponsorship patches on their shorts, and BattleMotors even sponsored the 205-lb rankings. It was all BattleMotors, all the time. Sadly, in the span of a few short years, a new electric truck that is garbage caught Dana White’s attention and the sponsorship deal has fizzled away.

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New Gloves, Now Old Gloves

Since the UFC made gloves mandatory, they were a problem. Seams on the edges caused horrible cuts, the glove itself became a grabbing point for opponents, and stiff gloves kept fingers from staying curled, resulting in rampant eye pokes, which referees gave very stern warnings about, but never deducted points for.

In April 2024, the UFC announced a newly designed glove that would alleviate these issues. Longtime coach Trevor Wittman had developed his own proprietary glove that, according to the fighters who tried it, was a fantastic design. However Wittman refused to turn over exclusive rights to the UFC, so they developed their own.

The new glove made its debut at UFC 302, on June 1, 2024. Regular fights would have FACE DESTROYING GUN METAL GRAY, championship fights and main events would feature BONE SHREDDING GOLD, The Ultimate Fighter bouts would use STRENGTH OF A VIPER STEALTH OF A SNIPER BLACK, Dana White’s Contender Series utilizing POOR LIFE DECISIONS LED ME HERE BLUE, and Road to UFC events using BLOOD EXSANGUINATING RED.

By UFC 309, November 12, 2024, the new gloves were scrapped in favor of the old gloves, which are now just The Gloves. Do not mention the new gloves, which are now the old, bad gloves. There are now and always just The Gloves. What went wrong?

According to Dana, fighters complained. According to other people, Jon Jones specifically complained, perhaps about the inability to effectively and consistently poke eyeballs. Also, an unlikely reason, but a conspiracy that was floated for a bit was that there were far fewer knockouts using the new gloves, that either the padding was in the wrong spot for fighters to throw effectively hard, or it was too padded and removed too much pop from punches. According to Khail Rountree, UFC branding was unable to stick to the glove, leaving fighters’ fists woefully, nakedly bare as the fight progressed.

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Never Say Never

I was hesitant to reference this entry. It’s older than the other examples, and was heavily discussed during its time. However, it is also a huge example of UFC pulling a monumental 180 degree turn.

In 2011, Dana White proudly proclaimed that women would never fight inside the UFC’s world famous Octagon. The skill level simply wasn’t there for women to be featured fighters. Miraculously, by February 2013, Ronda Rousey was headlining UFC 157 in the first women’s MMA bout in the UFC. Two years is quite the quick turnaround for women being too inept to main eventing a pay per view. How on earth did they manage it?

Ronda Rousey was pretty enough for Dana White. That’s it. The women were always skilled enough. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise has never seen Todd Duffee cock his arm back, straight elbow, in an attempt to throw a punch, looking like a rookie’s first attempt at a clothesline.