'EA Sports UFC 3' Captures the Best and Worst of Modern MMA

If you’ve ever seen my twitter feed, you know that I love MMA. I train in the discipline (when I’m not actively recovering from injuries), and I watch fights almost-daily. New fights, while tweeting (and losing followers). Old fights, running on my treadmill and getting amped up about technique and tactics. I’m the dork who keeps multiple fighting-oriented video subscription services going and enjoys a good Brazilian Jiujitsu match.

I’m also embarrassingly bad at playing fighting games, even those as “realistic” as UFC 3. But I am persevering through the game’s career mode, with Ori “BamBam” Baroa, my custom fighter, because, god damn it, she and her wonderfully gay tattoos deserve this. To be a successful fighter, a champion, an inspiration to everyone.

One of UFC 3’s best attributes is how well it nails the grueling beauty of the sport. You train. You learn new techniques. You need to be very careful not to overtrain and exhaust yourself. You sustain damage and need to heal between fights. And best of all—and rightfully—it respects the grind of training.

Training is, secretly, the best part of MMA. I’d like to compete one day, if my body can manage to not fall apart long enough. But even despite that, my happiest place on earth is in the gym, training. Drilling. Sparring. Learning techniques by fucking up until something like comprehension begins to hover around your conscious mind. Bit by bit by bit, the picture comes into focus from a blurry mess. And then, you have a shiny new tool for your toolbox! You can use that in sparring.

You can use it in competition.

There is nothing in any game that’s approached this level of satisfaction for me, but UFC 3 really gets the progression. The feeling of becoming sharper through continued, intensive effort. It’s impressive, and keeps me hanging on despite my own blunted fighting game skills.

I also appreciated the sense of progression in the grappling game. There’s a simplified, but satisfying realism to how you advance position against an opponent. Grappling is often described as a sort of human chess match: you constantly look for ways to advance to more and more dominant positions against your enemy, to eventually submit them—and defend against those same moves. It’s the most fun thing you can do with your body while wearing clothes, and I respect the hell out of the approach here.

No, there’s no way to truly simulate the way a black belt can crush your own face into your crotch within a second, but, this is a pretty fun approximation at a distance, so it works.

In between training, while you wait for your next official bout, you are encouraged to promote yourself. To make an almighty personal brand and build it. You can tweet fight details, get fans pumped, or even “stream” video games to get folks excited about you. It was an absolutely surreal moment when I saw the option pop up in game, as one of your most valuable and high-return options for gaining a following.

You can also engage in one of the the shittiest parts of modern MMA: trash-talking.

I’ve written a little bit before about the proliferation of amatuer-hour, bullshit trash talk in the sport. Of how, when fighters are victorious against loudmouths, or speak out against it, my heart sings. Best, then, when both of those things occur at once, Like when Rose Namajunas beat a mess-talking Joanna Jedrzejczyk, then said in her post fight interview “just be a good person.”

The shallow, bargain-bin-wannabe-WWE aspect of showmanship is both a symptom of the UFC going from a tiny niche to a successful and near-mainstream sport, and a disease that ails the game. UFC 3 goes all in on the doofy presentation stuff, starting off with a flashy package highlighting “Notorious” Conor McGregor, even putting the player in his trunks for the game’s into sequence that teaches you, sort of, how to fight. Really, it teaches you how to bloody the face of a barely-fighting-back Tony Ferguson.

This is all more than a little funny since no one actually knows when or if McGregor will even step into an MMA cage again. He’s also said some really shitty racist things in the name of “trash talk,” so, if he never returns, I certainly won’t be crying.

Personally, I think Max Holloway, Demetrious Johnson, Stipe Miocic, or Amanda Nunes would’ve made infinitely better choices for the cover athlete and flashy intro, but I know, I know: household name.

It’s this sort of bullshit that makes wonder if I should shake my head and walk away. The implicit admission—by this UFC-sanctioned propaganda—is that sheer skills and sportsmanship aren’t enough. Nah, you have to talk the talk too. Or rather, talk shit.

Look, there is a time and a place for that. It’s called professional wrestling, and that is also awesome! But it has no place in the practice of martial arts, which are supposedly about mutual respect. And, as far as I’ve played, you have the choice to respond respectfully on social media, meaning, you don’t have to take the trash all the way. But it sure does drum up viewers, doesn’t it?

What I like about MMA—and most combat sports in general—is this: It is one human being, almost naked, with nothing but their skills, their training, and their mental toughness, in a cage with another person. There are no balls, sticks, goals, weapons, or pieces of equipment. Nothing to obscure the fact that a very bloody, brutal examination of the human heart is about to go down.

To do that, you need to fundamentally respect the other person in there with you, and have a healthy, informed fear of the risks associated. Of the violence.

I certainly don’t blame the game’s developers for leaning in to the aspects of the sport that supposedly attract more butts in seats. And it all looks nice, certainly, with detailed animations and crisp lighting, and even everyone’s favorite referees modeled in-game with subtle, true-to-life motions.

But I’m happier in the in-between.

I just want to train, and find satisfaction in edging ever closer to greatness. To balance training, and avoid injury. To spend time in the smaller gyms, the ones with character, where normal people train too. The kind that have after-school programs for kids.

The fights that count in career mode are exciting, sure! To paraphrase Terrence Chan, a pro poker player-turned pro MMA fighter, training is the theory, but fights are the lab, where you put your skills to practice.

So, when I get to the fights, I’m excited, but I don’t care for the extras. I’m skipping ahead during the ring introductions, the iffy camera angles on the “ring girls,” the walkouts. I don’t care.

I just want to fight.