Despite the success of organizations like the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a fringe sport. Most people still can’t read about it in the sports section, yet comedy writers have been incorporating it into their series for decades. The history of MMA has its Western roots in the ancient Greek Olympic sport of Pankration and its Eastern roots in ancient China as Lei Tai. The history of the sitcom is decidedly different. These unlikely bedfellows, however, have made for some fun television.
Modern MMA began with UFC 1 in 1993, and it didn't take long for sitcom writers to incorporate the relatively new sport into shows. By 1997, hit network sitcoms were doing MMA-themed episodes. At the time, outside of these sitcom nods, the organization was floundering until the UFC produced its own reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, which aired on Spike TV as a last resort for giving MMA mainstream exposure.
Friends & NewsRadio Were Among the First Sitcoms to Depict MMA
Friends was the first television sitcom to go out of the mainstream and into the octagon in Season 3, Episode 24, "The One With The Ultimate Fighting Champion". In the episode, millionaire computer company manager Pete Becker (Jon Favreau) decides to pursue a career as a fighter despite having no history of training or competition. Needless to say, the endeavor doesn't go well for Pete, as his neck is stood upon until he passes out. While it would have been very easy to mock the sport -- especially at the time -- the show was as respectful as a sitcom could be, using it for a comedic plot line in the early days of MMA.
The following year, NewsRadio ventured into the cage in a much sillier fashion in Season 4, Episode 20, aptly titled "4:20." Writing for the episode made it clear the storytellers incorporated cast member Joe Rogan's love of the sport. Prior to being cast in the show, Rogan was a Taekwondo instructor and a winner of the US Open Championship's Taekwondo tournaments. In the episode, a character named Mr. James decides to eschew boxing for his club's evening entertainment, and instead put on an exciting no-holds-barred "Ultimate Fighting" match. Rogan's character, a station engineer named Joe Garrelli, is pitted against the station's blunderbuss, Matthew Brock (Andy Dick). The match ends significantly less violently than on Friends, with Matthew overcoming the odds by tickling Joe until he taps out.
The Simpsons Broke the Mold on MMA Depictions in Sitcoms
Ironically, shows didn't always get into the octagon to do an MMA episode, as It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia showed in Season 12, Episode 4, "Wolf Cola: A Public Relations Nightmare." Although the episode doesn't show a match, UFC fighters Donald Cerrone and Paul Felder play themselves and interact with Mac and Charlie throughout the episode. Even the UFC President Dana White has a brief speaking role as himself.
Despite sitcoms mostly celebrating MMA, things got a little less loving when The Simpsons took a swing at the sport in Season 21, Episode 3, "The Great Wife Hope." In the episode all the men and boys in Springfield become obsessed with the Ultimate Punch Kick & Choke Championship (the UPKCC), and Marge goes on a campaign to ban the sport. Other than touching on surface level bits about the sport and its audience, the episode is a mostly forgettable entry in the history of MMA in sitcoms.
The iCarly Franchise Is the Last Mainstream Depiction of MMA
Sitcoms and MMA together is not limited to adult fare, as Dan Schneider -- the controversial Nickelodeon creator of some of the most popular Millennial and Gen Z series -- has made MMA a fixture in many of his shows. There was the special one-hour season finale of iCarly Season 2, "iFight Shelby Marx", which sees the titular Carly Shay in a fake-turned-real cage fight. In the episode, she was up against a pre-Victorious Victoria Justice as teenage fighting phenom Shelby Marx.
While the fight choreography of "iFight Shelby Marx" isn't the best, the love of the sport shown by the iCarly writers more than makes up for it. Interestingly, the iCarly spin-off series, Sam & Cat, went a step further in its MMA depiction. In this case, one of the main supporting characters was managing an MMA fighter, and the fighter himself soon became a series regular. Since the character's promotion to series regular, Sam & Cat featured plenty of gym and cage set pieces.
Since the early days of MMA depiction in sitcoms -- apart from the television drama The Kingdom -- MMA has remained outside the mainstream, both culturally and in entertainment. Thankfully, a handful of comedy writers have incorporated a sport into their shows that most only see the humor in derisively.