Why are there no 30 for 30 docs about MMA?

[Byron Bitz]

30 for 30 docs have covered just about every sport except MMA. I wonder why this is, there are so many great stories they could tell such as the Yakuza involvement in Pride, Lee Murray’s crazy life, How Jon Jones could have been the greatest of all time and threw it away.
What other MMA stories would make a good 30 for 30 doc?

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[m9]

We probably haven't it because a) it's a niche sport and b) ufc controls the access to ufc/pride tapes.

Could see something happen now that the UFC is teamed up with ESPN.

 

[Brodeur]

Probably some rights issues which, as m9 mentioned, might be resolved with UFC partnering with ESPN.

At least for me, I enjoyed the 30 for 30s on stuff from the 80s/90s. I feel like recent stories have been covered pretty well. Bill Simmons shoehorned in a 30 for 30 on the Red Sox 2004 championship in 2010 which felt like it was too fresh compared to the other subjects.

And in a lot of cases, if you don't have some of the principle subjects cooperating, the documentary won't be as good (ie, Sportsnet did a 20 minute documentary on Alex Mogilny's defection but Mogilny declined to be interviewed). ESPN also ran into problems where there were interesting subjects, but really only 10-20 minutes worth of material which they spun off into the 30 for 30 shorts.

UFC/Fox produced its own documentary for their 20th anniversary and that was interesting to see the beginnings of the organization.

 

[Peter Griffin]

Has anyone watched the "UFC in 25 years" or whatever it's called that's aired on FightPass? Are they worth checking out?

 

[Byron Bitz]

Has anyone watched the "UFC in 25 years" or whatever it's called that's aired on FightPass? Are they worth checking out?

Ya the one about the New York legalization was good.

 

[Brodeur]

Haven't listened to it yet, but here's a 30 for 30 podcast about the beginning of the UFC: ESPN's 30 for 30 podcasts premieres 'No Rules - The Birth of UFC'

So it looks like the ball is rolling towards ESPN promoting UFC.

 

[MaxV]

ESPN’s understanding of MMA as a sport is very new. They just started to hire experts.

They had Steven A Smith as MMA analyst, that was ... something.

 

[John Price]

Not really any compelling stories to tell

There was one on Ric Flair but again Flair was someone who was in the industry for several decades and had a very high profile. MMA is popular now don't get me wrong but WWE / WCW / WWF was around since the 80's and Flair played a huge impact

 

[MaxV]

There are absolutely compelling stories to tell.

MMA in USA was very close to not happening at all, as government tried to shut UFC down.

It got to the point where UFC was holding events in HS gyms.

 

[MaxV]

They can do a 30 for 30 on Gracie family alone.

 

[LSCII]

Give it time. There will be. ESPN just signed the deal to take over. No way were they going to do a 30 for 30 on UFC when their direct competitor Fox Sports 1 had the television deal. Now that they do, it's a virtual guarantee we'll see one sooner rather than later.

 

[Deadpool8812]

UFC likely didn't want to cooperate with ESPN, but that could change now

 

[Lukin1978]

I'd watch 30 for 30 shows about
Ken Shamrock
Bas Rutten
Mark Coleman
Matt Hughes
There are definitely interesting stories to tell about early mma stars.