Jason M. Appleton - President, Big Show Entertainment, Inc. sent along the following:

Mixed Martial Arts has been founded upon the basis of brutality, aggression, one on one combat in a no holds barred cage. The Ultimate Fighting Championship, an organization where the men are separated from the boys and the cream rise to the top has built the sport on it’s own merit and marketing prowess. Over the years MMA has evolved into a respectable sport over the brutal blood fest as it was once marketed as being years ago. Today, with weight classes, athletic commissions, rules and the like, the UFC has taken the sport into the mainstream and continues to break new ground every month. We all know the UFC is the cream of the crop in terms of promotions, but do the best of the best fighters truly only fight under their banner? If marketing, politics and money weren’t such key factors in who gets a slot on a UFC fight card, would the same faces we see today still be there?

Across the country there are pro/am promotions pushing top quality talent to local and regional markets. The misconception is, if a fighter isn’t currently in the UFC, he wouldn’t make it if he were because “XXX” fighter is so amazing. The truth is, if I had millions of dollars in marketing, I could make you believe my baby daughter had a chance against anyone in the world and get you excited enough about it to get you to pay me to watch it. And therein lays the question…how many currently unknown fighters in the country today could stand toe to toe with the best the UFC has to offer and win?

There are only two ways to determine who the top up and coming fighters are in the country that would have a chance against the best of the UFC. Ether A. you would have to get them in the cage across from the best and see what happens or B. establish a national unified title amongst the most respected pro/am promotions in the country where each promotion pits their best local talent in each weight class against the best of other areas in a tournament ladder format and may the best man win the last position.

The challenge isn’t finding the hungry and talent fighters wanting to prove themselves, it’s getting enough pro/am promotions working together to develop and maintain the ladder. With egos in check and a true collaboration of efforts, it could easily be even a bigger deal than the UFC title itself.

How does such a system benefit MMA, Promotions and the fighters? Let’s say you had 5 of the top Pro/Am promotions in the country working together towards a unified title for each weight class. Of those 5 promotions, each one had 2 slots for contention of the fighters that have proven their merit in each class. Every event each promotion has would contain one or two unified title ladder bouts along with their typical fight card. Not only would it end up being a regional pride thing for the fans to get behind, but you have fighters touring the best promotions in the country further building their name recognition along with their fight record. No one promotion will have all of the unified titles under their banner and the winners of each unified title would certainly receive a great deal of press and national media attention which then puts all of the promotions involved in the national spotlight as well.

Do you as a fight fan think fighters traveling the country fighting the best of the best fighters in their weight class for a unified title would merit a chance in the UFC or Strikeforce? Ultimately what would happen is the unified title holders would garner enough attention and recognition that the major promotions would try to gobble them up which may be fine, but that fighter will merit a great deal more in fighter pay than the typical national debut fighter would and the major promotions would have the smaller shows truly working together to help make sure the best of the best are getting the slots on their fight cards.

The sport of MMA has a lot of room to grow and while the UFC of course would love nothing more than to maintain a monopoly on the sport, with as little competition as possible, the country needs a unified title amongst all of the top pro/am promotions because there are a lot of fighters out there who could easily contend with the best guys currently hailed as the worlds greatest fighters but there simply isn’t enough room for everyone to get a fair shot. A unified title would simply help keep track of who is doing what and make sure these hard working and talented fighters are getting the recognition they deserve and in the end, everyone involved benefits.