The first article produced by Super Lutas.
In 2007, when the Super Fights went live, the UFC was in its infancy in Brazil. The feeling of emptiness consumed fans in the face of the imminent extinction of PRIDE, bought months before by Ultimate itself, and the absence of a major mainstream event. Little did we know that a lot would change from then on.
Six years ago, Jon Jones, today one of the most important names in the sport and number one in the Ultimate weight-for-pound rankings, had not even made his professional debut in MMA. Georges St Pierre tried to recover from the surprising defeat to Matt Serra and prepared for the duel against Matt hugs, for the interim welterweight belt. AND Anderson Silva? The Spider had already defended his belt three times, a number still far from the ten defenses he obtained, but he did not have even half the fame or advertising contracts that he garnered over the years to come.
In the final stretch of the last decade, Strikeforce was trying to establish a competitive model. The organization held an event at the Playboy Mansion and even a single-night tournament, reminiscent of the early days of the UFC. At the same time, the WEC was dominated by Urijah faber, Doug Marshall, Paulo Filho e Carlos Condit. It was not even assumed that, years later, both organizations would be absorbed by Ultimate, along with several athletes on their rosters.
In 2007, Fabricio Werdum had not yet crossed the path of legend Fedor Emelianenko. Nor Antonio Pezão. Or Dan Henderson. Years later, the trio would be responsible for ending the Russian's almost decade-long unbeaten streak with three consecutive defeats. At this point, another heavyweight, coming from the pro wrestling WWE, began to emerge in MMA. It was Brock Lesnar, who was already preparing for his UFC debut, which would take place months later. Even with the defeat to Frank mir on his debut, “the baddest man on the planet” would become champion and one of the biggest sellers of pay-per-view of Ultimate history. Since then, a fight between Lesnar and Fedor has become a never-answered wish among fans.
But 2007 wasn't just filled with good memories. At that time, prejudice against MMA was greater and the limited view of those who didn't really know the sport was even more widespread than it is today. Honestly, in popular vocabulary, the term MMA wasn't even recognized at that point. Six years later, some difficulties still exist, but many others have been overcome. The athletes are world stars, the sport has gained more and more fans, some events are even broadcast on open TV and, annually, there is a Brazilian edition of the reality show The Ultimate Fighter.
In 2007, on November 21st, Takanori Gomi was featured in the first article written by Super Fights. The Japanese MMA star was rumored to be a new UFC signing. We like to imagine that, unlike Gomi, the Super Fights has been on an upward trajectory since that news. If the fighter fluctuated a lot, he suffered defeats and was unable to repeat the good times experienced in events in his home country, the Super Fights today it has a solid reader base, more than 10 thousand news articles already published, a specialized forum with more than 20 thousand registered users and around 300 thousand posts, almost 40 thousand fans on its Facebook page, and around one million accesses per month. Not to mention the production of special content, opinion texts, citations in the international press, coverage on the spot of the main events and, above all, credibility with the public that follows and loves MMA. To everyone who, in some way, was part of this story, thank you very much!
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