Us? The combat community? We saw some things in 2024.
We experienced events that loyal fans of other sports would blush over. We saw Mike Tyson’s bare ass as a streaming community and took the whole thing in stride, our immunities to such things long fortified. We saw forays, if you will, onto those same streaming services. Records being broken. Egos being fed.
The PFL and UFC found their ways to Saudi Arabia for events, which was novel in both geographical and financial terms. Boxing practically lived in Riyadh. In the neon of Miami, Sean O’Malley defended a title against Marlon Vera, which felt momentous in scope. It was his moment to become the biggest star of the sport. But then we saw Alex “Poatan” Pereira shoot through the cosmos like the very warden of our hysteria.
The year 2024 had its share of wild happenings, so many in fact that we forget that Nate Diaz beat Jorge Masvidal in a boxing event midway through the year. That one felt like a little dream while we drifted off on the couch. Just as Ilia Topuria’s statement against Alexandre Volkanovski at UFC 298 all the way back in February felt like the tip of the iceberg. And Dricus du Plessis’s triumph over Israel Adesanya a passing of the guard.
It was a memorable year. As a staff at Uncrowned, we were lucky enough to be on location for some of the biggest, most radical events of 2024 — events that won’t soon be forgotten. Here are some personal accounts of our favorites (or in at least one case, most memorable).
All along Rue de Bercy, touts requested action from anyone buying or selling tickets.
My French wasn’t strong enough to navigate my way to the media entrance without the assistance of an English-speaking porter.
“Everyone is here for Cédric Doumbé,” she told me before I entered the metal detector.
Immediately inside the Accor Arena, paparazzi had set up in the foyer like it was the MET Gala. French celebrities including acclaimed actor Vincent Cassell and footballer Djibril Cissé rubbed shoulders with KSW champion Salahdine Parnasse, who was rumored to be at the negotiating table with PFL.
The French bellowed every time one of their own took to the cage, but things became more extreme as Doumbé made his entrance. The credentialed media stood on their chairs, some on each other’s shoulders, to get a better view.
“Baki!” Doumbé boomed the name of his opponent through the sound system on numerous occasions.
“C’est mort!” was the crowd’s rousing refrained each time. (“Is dead!”)
In the end, the main event didn’t deliver. After numerous complaints from Doumbé, referee Marc Goddard was turned pantomime villain when he called the fight off. The crowd bayed for Goddard’s blood as Doumbé’s counterpart Baissangour “Baki” Chamsoudinov was announced the victor.
A group of Baki’s fans chanted his name by the exit as the reported 20,000 fans filed out. The passion was still pungent as the locals discussed the events all the way back down Rue de Bercy.
I left the venue elated.
I never thought I’d witness the scenes I saw in Dublin in 2014 again, but that night in Paris, I knew I’d spent a few hours under the covers of the most stifling hotbed in mixed martial arts.
— Petesy Carroll
I showed up in Las Vegas in April having been promised the single greatest night of fights in the history of combat sports. This was before UFC 306 in September, obviously, which became the next event to be billed as the greatest night of etcetera in etcetera. This was UFC 300, the one that was supposed to be special mostly because of the UFC’s curious numbering convention. (It was neither the 300th event nor the 300th pay-per-view, but still.)
It was the first live UFC event I’d attended in three years. I walked into T-Mobile Arena on a blustery spring afternoon thinking, ‘OK, let’s see the supposed greatest event of all time.’ I walked out that night (or maybe technically it was early the next morning) almost in a daze.
“How were the fights?” my girlfriend texted.
“That was the greatest night of fights I’ve ever seen,” I texted back.
I don’t want to say I was cynical going in. Skeptical, maybe. Aren’t fight promoters always telling us that the next event will be the greatest of all time? And after that, the next one? I’ve been covering this sport nearly 20 years now. At a certain point you don’t even hear these words anymore. It’s just static.
Plus, let’s be honest: On paper UFC 300 lacked that one big fight. It had two title fights (three if you count the ceremonial BMF title), but no must-see superstar. Alex Pereira vs. Jamahal Hill for the UFC light heavyweight title? Sure, that would be fine. But it’s not like it would vault one man to stardom while torturing the other indefinitely. And Max Holloway vs. Justin Gaethje for the BMF belt? It’d be exciting, but what were the odds it would produce the highlight to end all highlights?
The second fight of the night — King Green vs. Jim Miller — left both men soaked in blood. It would have been the Fight of the Night on basically any other UFC card, but here we were just getting warmed up. It was like that all night. You’d see something incredible, like Renato Moicano rallying back from the brink of unconsciousness to beat Jalin Turner. Then a little later you’d see something even wilder, like Jiri Prochazka stubbornly refusing to ever stop believing himself en route to a knockout win over Aleksandar Rakic.
By the time we got to the BMF face-plant, buzzer-beater knockout, my mind was completely blown. Then when “Poatan” marched out with his invisible bow and arrow before meme-ifying Hill, he sent us all reeling out into the glittering Vegas night. By that point there was nothing left to do but drink a Coors Light at the Taco Bell Cantina down the street and admit that some promises are kept, and some magic is real.
— Ben Fowlkes
It’s rare that the UFC does something so out of the ordinary that it turns into a “can’t miss” event, but for me that was the Sphere card in Las Vegas. I’d attended a concert at the Sphere a few months earlier, one of the early shows of the U2 residency, so I was curious to see how the UFC would drop an Octagon into a psychedelic setting meant to scramble the senses.
Was the whole thing a little confusing off the top? Hell yes it was. A pay-per-view featuring a Georgian marauder against a Juggalo-looking dude from Phoenix celebrating Mexican Independence Day as part of the Riyadh season was already a mushroom cloud of a trip, so expectations were high. Then you stand in that vast open space and see the walls climb up and engulf everything, with a drift of seats and balconies and distant upper sections that have blown over to one side, and it really does inspire some awe.
The Octagon was sitting there with a few rows of VIP seats between it and the towering LED screens. The little Mexican-themed vignettes were incredible. Celebrations of boxing’s best from way back to the present day. It was like Casa Bonita had come to life, mariachi madness, Dia de Los Muertos. We were in a swirling Mexican snow globe, and you should’ve seen Barstool’s own Robbie Fox, who was sitting next to me on press row. At times his own sense of wonder grew bigger than the show itself, which was infectious. At one point Clay Guida, who was sitting just in front of me, broke out into a sustained 10-minute dance that could generously be called “interpretive.”
The fights themselves were pretty damn good, too, and there was a natural escalation to the proceedings. We got a loud “chiwiwi” from Raul Rosas Jr right off the bat. I thought the Ignacio Bahamondes finish of Manuel Torres might be in line for a bonus, but that was before Norma Dumont opened a moat-sized cut over Irene Aldana’s eye. And that was before Esteban Ribovics and Daniel Zellhuber went to war for three impossible rounds in what was one of the greatest fights I’d ever seen live, and Diego Lopez trampled Brian Ortega, and Merab Dvalishvili kissed the unconsenting head of Sean O’Malley.
Strikeforce at the Playboy Mansion. A press conference at Shaquille O’Neal’s house in Orlando. The Rodgers Centre with over 55,000 throaty partisans for Georges St-Pierre in Toronto. I’ve been to some unique places for events. But there was something about the UFC at the Sphere that left me in need of a cigarette (and I don’t smoke). It was a lot to take in.
Dana White said they UFC spent upwards of $17 million to host the event there and I have to say, it was worth it.
— Chuck Mindenhall
NFL games are a different beast when it comes to sporting events. A typical UFC pay-per-view of 20,000 in attendance pales in comparison to the average 60,000 to 80,000 fans in the seats for a football fill-out. I’ve admittedly — and sadly — only been to one NFL game, which was during a 2018 trip to Seattle for my Green Bay Packers falling short, 24-27.
My visit to “Jerry World” AT&T Stadium, where the Dallas Cowboys play, had that similar feeling and outside optics. Fans flooded into the building, surrounding the building’s framework like ants set to take over their hill. But instead of a football game, it was for a boxing match — one that felt like it was from a scene ripped straight out of a comedy movie. Mike Tyson did appear in “The Hangover,” after all.
I’ve been to more Jake Paul matches than I’ll ever brag about at this point in my career, and while the usual crowd made their presence felt, November’s Paul vs. Tyson carnival was much more of an all-encompassing spectator’s vibe. The stadium’s massive size and capacity surely contributed to that, but this was undeniably the spectacle of a lifetime. Nothing more, nothing less.
We all knew how the main event would unfold. Everything that came before it was largely forgettable if you weren’t a boxing fan. That’s, of course, excluding yet another incredible clash between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, which stole the show and had the house rocking with boos when Taylor won a split decision.
I had to sit back and soak in the spectacle several times throughout the night. As silly as the matchup was that brought everyone there, looking around to see combat sports in this incredible state-of-the-art entertainment bubble was breathtaking and surreal. It gives you hope and desire for this to be a turning point and become the norm for fighting. At the same time, it makes it even more special that it’s not.
Ultimately, the event did its job and still suckered me in. Suspension of disbelief took over. As the headlining match got underway, the blood started pumping and that hope directed itself toward Tyson and visions of him turning back the clock.
“Just be competitive. Please don’t get hurt.”
You know? Those were normal thoughts considering what was happening and we all thought it together. They also quickly faded by the middle of Round 2, but it was fun while it lasted. And essentially, that’s all these events are. Whether or not that makes them OK or good is an entirely different conversation. Don’t take it too seriously and take them for what they are. You’ll understand why people enjoy them. Tyson vs. Paul was the pinnacle of a sporting circus, and I’m not sure how it gets topped.
Fittingly, my closing visuals of wandering to the media room through the post-apocalyptic grey bowels of the billion-dollar venue brought it all back to reality. Police officers interrogated a pair of individuals in a hallway as a woman leaned on the ground against the wall, covering her face. Concession brawls resulted in a panicked stretch roll to an ambulance as underground traffic navigated hefty security Escalades.
At its core, this was still a good old-fashioned gathering to watch a fistfight.
— Drake Riggs
