My UFC (Wikipedia page)

[dreamseller]

Been playing as the UFC using the Modern Warriors mod. Started in 2012 and now in 2022. It's been an incredible 10 years. There been some shocks and surprises, but overall awesome realism throughout. It's interesting to see how guys progress and how their careers pan out.

 

I made a Wikipedia page to keep track of my company over the years. You can find it here: http://filmframe.net/myufc.html

 

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Here are a few highlights from the last 10 years:

 

Jon Jones has been an enigmatic and ground-breaking LHW champion. He

lost the belt in Dec. 2012, shockingly tapped out by Ryan Bader in

what many experts call one of the UFC's greatest ever shocks. This is

the only time Jones has ever tasted defeat in MMA, his other loss

coming via DQ to Matt Hamill back in Dec. 2009.

 

After losing the title, Jones bounced back with a convincing TKO

victory over Gustafsson, but then left the UFC due to a contract

dispute. Rumours of him winding up in another promotion never

materialised, and a year later Jones was again fighting in the UFC.

He submitted Jorgen Kruth, before avenging his loss to Bader and

winning the title back by defeating Phil Davis in March 2015. Since

then, Jones has looked undefeatable with high profile wins over Ovince

St. Preux, Alexandre Ribeiro, Rick Frye, Kelly Anundson among others.

He's defeated the who's who of the LHW divison and the UFC constantly

strive to bring in the best LHW fighters from around the world to

compete with Jones.

 

As 2020 rolled around, the world of MMA began to declare Jon Jones an

unbeatable champion. People began to question if anyone would ever be

abe to beat Jones. Although good young and talented fighters came up

through the ranks, no one was able to topple Jones, who has looked

indestructible since that shock loss to Bader.

 

Bored with the seeming lack of competition in the LHW divison, Jones

took a year long break from MMA in order to make Hollywood films. The

UFC honoured him by not vacating his title as long as he agreed to

return for the UFC's big end of year Las Vegas show in 2021.

 

Hatsu Hioki has carved out a legendary career in MMA. He's been known

as the "Ground Master" and "Mister Undefeatable." He went 19 fights

undefeated, 16 of those in the UFC, and held the UFC Featherweight

title from August 2012 until being bested in a classic fight against

Charles Oliveira in Nov. 2019. He defended the title a record 13 times

and holds wins over the who's who of Featherweight competition,

including being the only man to have beaten Jose Aldo twice. Hioki,

already one of the all-time pound-for-pound greats, won his title back

from Oliveira in June 2021 in another titantic battle of ground

maestros. They're due to complete a third and deciding fight, which

Hioki has said is his final goal before retiring.

 

BJ Penn was tapped out for the first time ever in his career by the

legendary Shinya Aoki. Not only did he beat him, but he broke his arm

at UFC 170. The Hall of Famer, Penn, only lost one other time to

submission, being bested by Gleison Tibau for the Lightweight title at

UFC 228.

 

Penn's career had taken off again after he beat Ben Henderson in an upset

at UFC 166 to win a surprise 2nd Lightweight title. Everyone had written Penn

off after his double loss to Frankie Edgar in 2010, but he rejuvenated his career

and captured the Lightweight title twice more before calling time on his career.

 

After his three fight losing streak in Strikeforce, in a dramatic

move, and something that MMA writers and fans thought they'd never

see, Fedor Emelianenko entered the UFC in late 2012. To this day, experts are

still confused exactly how the deal got put together, but

unfortunately only one fight is all the UFC could put together. Fedor, in

another surprising move, fought at Lightheavyweight against fellow

former Japanese-based Quinton Rampage Jackson. In a tough match, Fedor

got the win via strikes.

 

It would be another 4 years until Fedor would be seen in an MMA fight

again. He returned to DREAM to great fanfare in 2016, but lost via

submission to rising star Adelino Klein. 2 years later, Fedor again

fought in DREAM, this time getting a TKO victory over former UFC

champion Frank Mir.

 

Heath Herring is unbeaten since his August 2008 lose to Brock

Lesnar at UFC 87. He's riding a 9 fight winning streak. Never out of the

top 10 pound-for-pound fighters over the last 10 years, he just keeps winning.

Despite shunning the UFC on numerous occasions to have him back, he is

fighting well into his 40s and is a force to be recognised with.

 

Rampage Jackson had a tumultuous end to his UFC career. He regained

the Lightheavyweight title at UFC 173 in Oct. 2013 beating Phil Davis,

before successfully defending it in a heated second battle with Rashad

Evans. However, Jackson shockingly quit the UFC at the end of that

year and went back to Japan and the DREAM promotion. He captured the

Lightheavyweight title there, before dropping it in his next fight to

Hiroshi Izumi and deciding to retire from the sport.

 

Jackson's leaving of the UFC as champion thrust them into a difficult

situation with the Lightheavyweight mix. An 8 man tournament decided

the new champion with Phil Davis coming out on top to start his second

LHW title run.

 

Georges St-Pierre, widely considered the greatest fighter of all time,

retired with just 5 loses, 4 of which were avenged. He only lost 5

times in the Octagon, once each to Matt Hughes, Matt Serra, former

team-mate Rory MacDonald, Hector Lombard and Kyle Pimental - all

former champions. He retired before he was able to re-match Pimental

in a fight that the fans were begging to see again.

 

St-Pierre did what no other fighter has been able to do - to go up a

weight class, win the title and then defend two weight classes'

titles concurrently. He was able to do this by jumping up to the

Middleweight division in order for the UFC to promote the "Dream of

All Dreams" fight against the man who was, at the time, the best

fighter the world had ever seen, Anderson Silva. The UFC went back and

forth on making this a title fight, but both fighters in the end

convinced them to make it happen. St-Pierre beat Silva by unamimous

decision in one of the biggest UFC events of all time at the big

summer Vegas show in 2013 to be crowned the new pound-for-pound fight

king.

 

St-Pierre went on to defend the Middleweight title twice whilst he

also took fights defending his Welterweight title. MMA pundits had

never seen anything like it - St-Pierre was a fight machine taking on

all challengers, much to the chagrin and skepticism of UFC heads and

his management. Rory MacDonald became the first man in 8 years to beat

him at Welterweight. The two former team-mates locked horns in what

they called a Respect fight, and a match that was on-and-off for years

before the two agreed to face each other - losely considered a passing

of the torch beaten the two Canadians. Much to the surprise of

everyone, St-Pierre was able to return and win back his cherished

title (beating old nemesis Carlos Condit) and making a solid third run

with the title before hanging up the gloves. St-Pierre will also be

known for his heated feuds and legendary fights with Nick Diaz and

Jake Shields.

 

Anderson Silva, a Hall of Famer, has had a career like no other. After

losing his title to St-Pierre, he bounced back and won the belt from

Hector Lombard. However, in his very next fight, he was knocked out by

Luke Rockhold in what MMA writers have described as one of the most

dramatic and best-remembered knockouts of all time. Rockhold, a solid

contender but still unproven at this point, wasn't meant to beat

Silva, let alone knock him out in such devastating fashon. In

hindsight, this has been seen as a real passing of the torch fight,

with Silva's loss ushering in a new generation of Middleweight stars

led by Luke Rockhold, Derek Brunson and Cameron Diffley.

 

The Heavyweight divison has been one of the most up-and-down divisions

in the UFC, with no fighter ever being able to go on a run of

dominance the likes of which we've seen in other divisions. Perhaps

one of the greatest Heavyweight fighters the world has ever seen,

Junior dos Santos has had a career resembling that of Randy Couture.

Not always an out and out winner (especially in his later career), but

dos Santos' fights are always some of the best around and he's never

short of drama and fairytale endings.

 

Originally a destructive finisher who would take men apart with his

hands, dos Santos gradually tranisitoned into a more tactical fighter

as his fists slowed down and bigger, stronger guys began coming into

the Heavyweight division. He dropped his title by Overeem in June 2012

in a great fight and went on to regain it by beating Cain Velasquez

for a second time in Dec. 2014. Over the next 5 and a half years, dos

Santos went through a mixed period in his career before emerging out

of nowhere to mount another title bid. In a huge upset, he beat the

seemingly invincible Philip DeFries for the title at UFC 273, knocking

him out in a finish that has become a major highlight reel for the

UFC.

 

Through all his dramatic and fantastic fights and his fairytale

late-career title run, dos Santos has to be considered one of the

all-time premiere Heavyweights in the world of MMA.

 

Over the last 10 years, the UFC has seen a significant rise in talent

from Eastern Europe, especially in the Heavyweight and LHW divisions.

Some MMA writers have crudely termed it the "Russian Invasion."

Fighters such as Kirill Sidelnikov (the protege of Fedor Emelienko,

Blagoi Ivanov, Jonas Fyodorov, Karol Bedorf, Shamil Abdurahimov Vitaly

Minakov and Misha Cirkunov have entered the UFC and made a name for

themselves, some as title contenders. But the man who made the biggest

stir was Guram Gugenishvili, known as "The Georgian Bear." The massive

Gugenishvili came to the UFC with a 19 fight unbeaten streak, spread

over M-1 and DREAM. He looked indestructable as he took apart the best

the UFC could throw at him, eventually winning the title by submitting

UFC fan favourite Dave Herman. However, in his next fight, Guram

dropped the title to rejuvunated star Todd Duffee who destroyed him

with strikes at UFC 240 to claim the upset victory. Since that loss,

Guram hasn't been the same, losing to top fighters like Velasquez,

Cole Konrad and Karl Gellar.

 

Cole Konrad is the nearly-man of the UFC. He came over from Bellator

in 2014 and put together a string of wins whilst working his way

through the division. Despite wide acclaim and a couple of title shots, he was never

able to capture the championship that many people believed he had the talent to hold.

 

Nick Diaz, one of the most controversial men in the history of MMA,

has had a crazy UFC career. He's twice left the UFC over contract

disputes, stemming from money issues or what he terms as mistreatment

and disrespect. However, whether in the UFC's Welterweight or

Middleweight divisions, he's long been one of the top ranked fighters

and rarely dropped out of the top 15 over the last ten years.

 

Diaz beat Rockhold for the Middleweight title in August 2016 after a

fierce and lengthy feud between the two of them. After defending his

title once, Diaz engaged in another drama-filled feud with Derek

Brunson, eventually dropping the belt to Brunson at UFC 235. The loss

was a dramatic one, but the two put their bad-blood behind them and

embraced at the end of the fight. But in his next fight, Diaz (still

fuming from losing his title) went into the fight against Chris

Weidman like a rabid animal. In a much-criticised decision, Diaz lost a

Unamimous Decision to Weidman. Diaz was furious and got into a scuffle

in the Octagon with officials after the fight. He no-showed the post

fight press conference and hasn't been seen in an MMA arena since.

 

Jake Shields, who has to rank among the greatest all-time ground-game

kings of MMA, had a hard-luck career in the UFC. In 4 title shots (in 2 divisions), he

was unable to ever win a UFC title, despite a sterling record and the

enduring respect of his fellow fighters. He will be remembered for his

unbeaten streak in EliteXC and Strikeforce before entering the UFC, as

well as his exceptional ground skills and feuds with Georges St-Pierre

and friend turned nemesis Nick Diaz. Shields and Diaz, team-mates,

decided to fight for the Middleweight title when Diaz was champion and

Shields top contender. 2014 saw two titantic battles in their heated

feud, with Diaz winning a Unanimous Decision (much criticised) and a

submission victory.

 

Cameron Diffley has led the charge of the new generation of

Middleweight fighters who have entered the UFC. Previously an

assistant BJJ coach for Forrest Griffin on the Ultimate Fighter,

Diffley burst onto the scene in the UFC with a string of wins before

beating Derek Brunson for the Middleweight title in July 2018. Often

against competitors who outmatched him in a certain area of the fight

game, Diffley came up with ways to beat them and became known as a

master strategist of the MMA world, especially against fellow

groundgame experts - he's one of only a handful of men to hold a

submission victory over Jake Shields. Diffley defended his title 4

times before dropping it in a shock loss to rising star Hugo

Caballero.

 

Rodrigo Lima is a real champion's champion, but with the strong

competition in the UFC, hasn't had a lengthy title run, despite

winning the Bantamweight title on two different occasions. One of the

hardest working guys in MMA, but seen as arrogant and aloof by some,

Lima is one of the best ground guys around. After leaving Bellator to

join the UFC, Lima made a super-fast run at the title beating

Demetrious Johnson to become one of the youngest ever UFC champions.

Known for his meteoric rise up the ranks, Lima is now considered one

of the UFC's top stars after a fiery feud with Erik Koch really put

him on the map. The two have fought two great fights - the first, Koch

took the title from Lima, and the second Lima returned the favour

regaining his cherished title from Koch.

 

Demetrious Johnson will go down as a legend in the sport of MMA.

Despite his small stature, Johnson has more heart than pretty much

anyone. Already a former Flyweight and Bantamweight champion, Johnson

tried to do what no man has ever done and win a championship in a

third weightclass. Hatsu Hioki was two strong for Johnson at 145,

though, and he was unable to beat Hioki in a tough match.

 

John Lineker really stepped up to be the man in the Flyweight

division. In the early days of the division, the UFC was desperately

looking for someone to become a top star and really put the division

on the map. Lineker obliged and became the first internationally

recognised star in the fledgling Flyweight division. His feuds with

John Dodson and Ian McCall were a big part of this, and his star only

grew once Demetrious Johnson jumped up to Bantamweight and Lineker was

really able to dominate the division for many years.

 

Dominick Cruz dominated the Bantamweight division over two periods and

will be known for fierce rivalries with Urijah Faber, Miguel Angel

Torres and Demetrious Johnson. Cruz lost his belt to Faber in a

heavily contested Unanimous Decision loss in July 2012. He would

eventually win the belt back in October 2013 and hold it for a number

of years. At one point, he tried to go up to Featherweight and

challenge then-champion Hatsu Hioki when Hioki was unbeatable and

running out of challengers at 145. Hioki tapped out Cruz in a fight

that really stated Hioki's dominance and standing in the sport.

 

Goro Narahashi burst onto the scene in the UFC and took the MMA world

by storm. Undefeated upon entering the UFC in 2018, and known as "The

Bastard," Narahashi took on all comers and eventually beat long-time

Flyweight champion and mega-star John Lineker. Over the next few

years, Goro defended his title before a shocking knockout at the hands

of Darrell Montague.

[Smithy]

Great read and some big shocks one been Hioki's dominance and aldo not winning a title back.

 

Jones bounced back well with scary dominance in the 205 division, have you thought of moving him up?

[dreamseller]

Great read

 

Thanks for the kind words. This has really become a labor of love type project.

 

some big shocks one been Hioki's dominance and aldo not winning a title back.

 

Yeah, he's crazy dominant in this mod, or at least he is in my game world. His stats aren't even off the charts, but he's defeated the who's who of featherweight + below divisions over the years, so it's not like he's just come up against weak opposition. Also, it's consistent domination at a high level, so he didn't just have a few lucky results.

 

Jones bounced back well with scary dominance in the 205 division, have you thought of moving him up?

 

I did consider, but have, thus far, chosen not to as I didn't want to set too much precedent with big names shifting weight divisions. I did it with GSP in the middleweight division and he ended up sustaining his first loss at Middleweight long before he lost at Welterweight (which I guess is pretty realistic). Still, in hindsight, I should have just done the big GSP-Anderson Silva fight at Middleweight and made it a non-title affair, so that when GSP did win he wouldn't end up staying in the division to defend the title.

 

I do shift guys around weightclasses quite a bit, but I always like to have a good reason. One of the guys I haven't yet written about (Rick Frye) is a good example. He's dominant at 205 and his only losses come at the hands of Jon Jones himself. He's lost twice to him 4 years apart. Thing is, he dominates everyone else in the division, but just can't get that win against Jones to claim the title. But the guy's a champion in the making and is still young, so I've dropped him down to Middleweight where I'm sure he'll eventually grab the title there. He's a really marketable guy, so worth the drop down in divisions rather than having an endless stream of Jones-Frye matches, as Frye just kept on getting to number 1 contender for long periods of time.

[Smithy]

I'll have to start a game with UFC on the modern warriors mod soon, but their roster is massive as is the database.

 

How do you go about booking fights and ppv's/tv shows any particular method to keep most active?

[dreamseller]

How do you go about booking fights and ppv's/tv shows any particular method to keep most active?

 

I started out booking all the shows that the UFC already had in the pipeline. Think that took me up to about September 2012. I'd just book the exact same fights on the cards that they already had planned.

 

From there, I started running on average 1 and a half UFC numbered events every month, and I'd run a each of the TV shows (FOX, FX and Fuel) about 3 times a year. So that was 9 TV shows in all. That was pretty realistic.

 

After a while and some years of game-world time, I decided to just run the one UFC numbered show a month - usually on the second Saturday of the month. So that's 12 events a year. I now run each TV show twice a year (one in spring and one in winter). That's 6 TV shows a year.

 

All in all, this is plenty to keep my guys active. Always keep at least 100+ guys on my roster at any one time, so it's a lot of contracts and stopping the simming due to email messages - that's the most time consuming bit of running a company this size.

 

I only run the minimum amount of prelim fights in order for the show to go ahead (1 on the numbered UFC events and 2 on the TV shows). I prefer to keep my guys on the main card, as they build up faster that way.

 

My system is to run 8 fights on each card - so that's 7 main fights and a prelim with lesser known guys on the UFC numbered events, and 6 main fights and 2 prelims on the TV shows. UFC numbered events usually contain bigger name fighters, with at least 2 top fights (title or top contender fights), and the TV shows are usually a showcase of up-and-coming and lesser known fighters. Depends, though, as I like to satisfy my (imaginary) audience and sometimes put a bigger name (main event PPV caliber) fight as a TV show main event. The UFC numbered events (my PPVs) nearly always have a title bout as the main event. I've run a double title bout event before, but only in the case of a massive event (UFC 200, for example). Some PPVs will not have a title bout and feature a top contenders type bout, or something along those lines. That's usually 10 or so title fights a year.

 

Show wise, the two biggest shows of the year are the July UFC PPV and the big end of year PPV, which is usually around New Year's Eve. I normally try and book the biggest main events of the year on those two cards.

 

I have all the standard UFC weightclasses/titles - Heavyweight, Lightheavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Lightweight, Featerweight, Bantamweight and Flyweight. I also ran a woman's division for a couple of years, but scrapped it as I just found it too confusing having all the above titles plus another 2 women's titles. I sent all the women down to Strikeforce and that became a MASSIVE women's division promotion.

 

Speaking of Strikeforce, that's another top tip. Every couple of months, I'll go to the Corporate Relations tab and check who's doing well in Strikeforce. Usually I'll check those fighters over 35% reputation and promote some of the guys to the UFC. In this way, Strikeforce is a proper feeder territory for me - allowing guys to build up their records and reputations before taking the step up to the UFC.

 

I like to have most guys fighting around 3 fights a year. Most title holders fight 2 times a year. Some up and coming guys (especially guys who come in from other companies very hyped) may fight 4 times a year. It's cool as the other companies (especially the indie feds) tend to build up fighters records pretty fast by running tonnes of cards a year and those guys might fight 6 times a year sometimes.

 

Injury rates seem to be pretty low and I have the option ticked to allow me to book basically any matches - avoids the annoying "I won't fight this guy" stuff, and allows me to work in story lines about friends/training partners deciding to fight each other. An example of this in my company was GSP fighting Rory MacDonald and Nick Diaz battling Jake Shields. I get injuries after fights, but never have injuries before fights (that end up stopping big fights from happening). Hardly get any drug stories either, although had a couple (always low profile ones).

 

Oh, another thing I do is after fights I use the Fighter Request thing as an imaginary fight-maker. Instead of being a fighter making a request, in my game it's the match-maker suggesting a potential match down the way. So when a Fighter Request email comes in after a fight (they call out another fighter or something), I note it down and nearly always make that fight in the future (unless it's already happened, and they hardly ever request those anyway). Another thing is that I don't like rematching up fighters too much. Exceptions are the rubber match for best of three, or a big money title rematch, or something that the fans really want to see. In this vein, I take retirement matches pretty seriously and nearly always send legends out on a big fight (often high up the card, if not the main event). An example was a third and final match between Sonnen and Silva when Sonnen retired.

 

I keep my eye on the rankings all the time, and ensure only the best guys and most deserving get title shots. I occasionally run number 1 contender eliminator type matches like the real UFC does, but most of the time guys are getting title shots from me looking t the bigger picture of their recent records.

 

Anyway, this is turning into an essay.

 

Feel free to ask any other questions and I'll help where I can.

[Smithy]

Not what i was expecting, was expecting a more UFC style of booking like 15+ ppv shows a year and for fights booking 5/6 main card fights with 6-8 prelim fights.