It wasn’t much of a build-up was it? The UFC may have come a long way in the last ten years, but its Hall of Fame is in the dark ages.
Six weeks ago, Dana White announced that Stephen Bonnar and Forrest Griffin would be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame at their event on July 6, 2013. That day has arrived, and they are now officially part of the Hall of Fame, but has this really mattered as much as it should? That answer is easy: No.
Let’s forget about the fact that there is no physical Hall of Fame. There are a lot of high profile HOF’s that don’t have a structure yet. We won’t even say that an issue is the relative young age of the sport. The first few inductees of Royce Gracie, Dan Severn and Ken Shamrock were legendary figures when they were inducted, and it is not that anyone can make a claim that enough time has not passed that they should be on this institution. This shows that the UFC Hall of Fame has the right to exist alone. However without a structure on how to get in, how can anyone start to really care?
Think of the Baseball Hall of Fame for a minute. No matter what criticism you can come up with in regards to the Cooperstown based Hall, you know exactly when a player is eligible, how long he will remain on the ballot, how many votes he got, and when the process will take place. The Football, Hockey and Basketball Halls of Fame, at least has many of those transparencies in place. The UFC Hall of Fame gives us none of these.
The first two inductees were Shamrock and Gracie in November of 2003. Some years there are inductees, some there are not. Not only is there not an assigned time after retirement when one becomes Hall of Fame eligible, we have had fighters compete on the weekend of their induction, basically putting in an active contestant into a Hall of Fame. There is no committee deciding who gets in; basically whoever UFC owner, Dana White wants to induct. For that matter, we never know when he will induct someone next, as there is no pattern to it.
This past weekend, White was on the defensive as to why Bonnar was inducted despite having what was an up and down career. If there was a process that was clear (or even Basketball Hall of Fame clear) as to the induction process of the UFC Hall of Fame, this criticism probably would not have happened. Either way, it is UFC HOF weekend, and nobody cares, and despite what you may think Dana, that is your fault.
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