Back in the late aughts, one of MMA’s hotbeds was Columbus, Ohio. The UFC would go there to coincide with the annual Arnold’s so the body building community could discover, if it hadn’t already, the raging joys of cage fighting. Each year there’s a new destination, outside of the UFC’s own Las Vegas hub, that embraces barefoot fighting as if they’ve been starving for it.
For instance, in 2011, Rio entered the picture. The UFC made its first stop there in over a decade, and it was such a madhouse for Anderson Silva’s title defense with Yushin Okami that Lorenzo Fertitta promised four Brazilian events per year going forward. In 2013, the Great White North was all the rage. With Georges St-Pierre standing as a national icon, Dana White said he’d return to Canada every weekend if it were possible. In 2014, it was Conor McGregor’s Dublin that turned the rest of the combat world green with envy. Those were the salad days of Mystic Mac.
In 2016, it was New York joining the club. The UFC at Madison Square Garden. Madonna even made an appearance.
So, when we look back into the Wikipedian past a decade from now, what will we identify as MMA’s greatest hotbeds of 2024? It’s funny you should ask. It’s something we’ve contemplated in putting together this little capsule, identifying those white-hot markets of the present day that speak directly to the passion of the game.
Here are MMA’s greatest hotbeds of 2024.
Paris, France
Technically speaking, France was frothing at the mouth for MMA long before Cédric Doumbé became the country’s most celebrated artist since Honoré de Balzac. Going back to the unsanctioned days of … let’s see … a few years ago … there were folks clamoring for MMA to be legalized. You had people like Francis Ngannou training in Paris, alongside the fantaisie Carmonts (Francis and Didier). Long, lean snipers like Cyrille Diabaté. Forgotten intrigues like “Professor X,” Xavier Foupa-Pokam, evil in name alone.
The devil was always in the details along the Seine.
And that deprivation of MMA only fed into the wild scenes that played out in late 2023 and all through 2024. Whenever the PFL’s Doumbé makes an appearance, it’s a cause for a national celebration. Fans singing and chanting. The foundations of the Zénith Paris — and later the Accor Arena — shaking to the studs. Flags swaying. Obscenities flying. The odd Ric Flair woo from the expats in the nosebleeds. A cameo by Uncrowned’s Petesy Carroll sitting cageside. It’s been a fun brand of madness, even if Doumbé is slugging it out with such anonymities as Jordan Zebo, Baissangour Chamsoudinov and Jaleel Willis.
PFL is onto something by tapping the rabid French market, and recently Poland-based KSW dropped in too. KSW 101: Le Classique featured Aubervilliers’ own Salahdine Parnasse, who whipped his French faithful into a frenzy in recent weeks by making quick work of Wilson Varela to win the lightweight title.
So far the UFC’s biggest splash with anything France has been strictly confined to Kai Kara-, yet there was a moment from the promotion’s September visit that solidified the sentiment of France being MMA’s No. 1 rising hotbed. That was when the American Bryan Battle broke the French stronghold on a Fight Night event by beating Kevin Jousset, a French delicacy from Bordeaux. The crowd booed Battle so fervently during his post-fight interview that he cut a promo worthy of the Iron Sheik when he played on our Western fears. There was true hatréd in the air for the intérlopér.
Now that is passion.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Passion may not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Saudi Arabia’s foray as host to the global MMA party (as money tends to do away with abandon), but it’s not every day you get Robert Whittaker headlining a Fight Night. That kind of money and sway speaks to the inner geography of the Deep Pocket.
Still, it’s an MMA hotbed because prizefighting drifts toward the dollar sign like Tom from “Tom and Jerry” drifts towards the oven smells in his sleep. UFC booked Whittaker versus Khamzat Chimaev originally for its inaugural Saudi Arabia showcase, which signified the kind of commitment the promotion has with the Saudis, yet it ended up being Ikram Aliskerov who stood in against “Bobby Knuckles.” Still a wild show, all things considered, with Shara Bullet continuing his great pillaging of 2024 and Volkan Oezdemir sleeping Johnny Walker in the most brutal way possible.
Yet it was once again the PFL that stole the show in Riyadh, throwing its biggest party of the year for His Excellency and his guests. They called it the Battle of the Giants, and it lived up to billing. Francis Ngannou’s successful return to MMA? Cris Cyborg batting back the clock and the haters with a show of mettle against Larissa Pacheco? Paul Hughes upsetting A.J. McKee?
Check, check and check. The Saudi Arabian takeover of the boxing world garners most of the attention, but big things are happening in MMA over there as well. That bed will stay hot heading into 2025 too, as the UFC has already announced another Big Time Fight Night featuring bouts between Israel Adesanya versus Nassourdine Imavov and Shara Bullet against “MVP,” Michael Page for Feb. 1.
Salt Lake City
For as unlucky as Calgary and Edmonton have been for events in those regions, the United States’ spiritual akin, Salt Lake City, is at an all-time high for impossible happenings. In the past couple of years alone, Salt Lake City has seen Justin Gaethje kick Dustin Poirier’s head into the mezzanine to win the BMF title, Leon Edwards snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in upsetting Kamaru Usman in what might be the greatest comeback ever, and now Alex Pereira walk through an active mine field to beat Khalil Rountree at UFC 307. That latter main event was shortlisted for Fight of the Year in 2024.
In other words, Utah is spoiled.
The “SLC” thinks that every UFC event delivers beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that history will always be made whenever the Octagon hits the Delta Center. The fans out there? They eat it up. Those are some lively crowds out in Salt Lake City, even if the most recognizable fighter to ever come out of the area is Court McGee (honorary shout to Jeremy Horn, who was unfortunately a decade before his time).
Of course, Salt Lake coughs up the money to make it happen. So this is a UFC-manifested craze, based on bidding. That takes a little of the organic “hot bed” feel out of it. But speaking strictly of the deliverables in a particular plot of magic land, Salt Lake City has become a kind of fight game Narnia.
The whole of England
Listen, the summer of 2022 goes down in English MMA in the way that San Francisco did the Summer of Love in ’67. There was no greater moment for England’s drunken love. We had Molly “Meatball.” We had Nathaniel Wood. Paddy Pimblett, feasting on poor Jordan Leavitt. Preliminary appetizers like Muhammad Mokaev. Leon Edwards, just a month away from making history.
And of course, Tom Aspinall, the bemused heavyweight sensation from Wigan.
Flash ahead to 2024, and much of that magic is still in the air, even if some of the fortunes have changed among the players. UFC 304 was held in Manchester as special homecoming for Edwards to defend his welterweight title against the UFC’s equivalent of a “mandatory,” Belal Muhammad, and Aspinall to try to make things right against Curtis Blaydes. Because the event was staged in the wee hours of the morning to accommodate the American time zones, this hot bed was in search of any bed.
At some point — around the swing bout on the main card — the long beer sessions of the previous night turned to hangovers, and by the time Muhammad took Edwards’ belt, the assembled were contemplating breakfast spots.
But the biggest reason we haven’t seen the full breadth of England’s rule as an MMA hotbed? Aspinall’s purgatory. The interim heavyweight champion is one Jon Jones victory away from becoming one of Jolly Ol’s greatest sporting icons, and the whole country is a bow string that’s being pulled back, ready to let go.
Germany
Before the pandemic opened the floodgates for default UFC Apex Fight Nights, the UFC would occasionally drop into Germany. The cards were OK, but perhaps the Germans weren’t quite ready to embrace all the splendor that MMA has to offer.
If there’s any indication that they’re ready now, look no further than Oktagon 62, which took place in Frankfurt in October. Over 60,000 people showed up to the Deutsche Bank Park to watch Christian Eckerlin and Christian Jungwirth trade punches and determine the “King of Germany.”
(Spoiler alert: Eckerlin won.)
The skinny: European MMA in on the upswing.
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Honorable mentions:
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All of Poland
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Perth, Australia
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New York City
