First televised MMA Awards to honor fighters, ring girls, gyms

By Sarah Feldberg

Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 | 12:52 a.m.

Hollywood has its Oscars. Teeny boppers have the MTV Awards. Television has the Emmys; and the music industry has... well, never mind.

Now, the mixed martial-arts community has its own excuse to don tuxes and clear off some space in the trophy cabinet — the Fighters Only World MMA Awards, held Dec. 30 at the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

"I want it to be the Oscars of mixed martial arts," said Fighters Only President and CEO Rob Hewitt of the awards, which were given out last year individually and will be presented this year at a ceremony hosted by Last Comic Standing winner John Heffron and broadcast live on Versus.

"I'm looking forward to seeing GSP (Georges St. Pierre) or Brock Lesnar or a real superstar on Cribs and highlighting their Fighters Only World Mixed Martial Arts Award in the same vein that an American football player might highlight their Heisman trophy."

The celebrity pointing out that trophy on TV could end up being Holly Madison. The Peepshow star is up for the award for "Ring Girl of the Year" for her guest appearance strutting around the Octagon during UFC 100. Rather than honoring only the athletes who perform in MMA, the Fighters Only World MMA Awards also cover MMA journalism, clothing and equipment manufacturers, and fighting gyms. Located in Las Vegas, Randy Couture's Xtreme Couture Mixed Martial Arts Gym is one of five facilities nominated for the award for "Gym of the Year." The nominees for the prized "Fighter of the Year" award are Georges St. Pierre, Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva, Mike Brown and Brock Lesnar.

However, which one of the fighters will take home the award is out of Hewitt's hands. For all but one of the 19 awards to be presented Wednesday night, the decision is in the hands of MMA's fast-growing community of fans, who cast votes for the nominees in each category. Last year's awards garnered 21,000 votes on the Fighters Only Web site, and this year's have tallied 121,000. "We're looking forward to next year and the year after when we'll go to 1,021,000," laughs Hewitt.

Only the "Lifetime Achievement" award is not determined by fan voting, instead being left to what Hewitt calls a panel of "industry insiders."

For the Fighters Only founder, a former amateur boxer who fell in love with MMA after training with Colin Sexton and Ian "The Machine" Freeman, letting fans choose the winners in categories like "Fighter of the Year," "Knockout of the Year" and "Female Fighter of the Year" makes sense for MMA.

"Arguably the fans are the most important people that provide the growth of the sport, the expansion of the sport and the well-being of the sport," explains Hewitt, adding that some fighters have actively campaigned for the awards after learning of their nominations. "They've gone out to their fan bases and pleaded for people to vote for them. It obviously must mean something to them."

It means enough that many top-tier fighters will be spending the second-to-last night of 2009 at the Joint watching the awards show and perhaps collecting a trophy of their own. Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, Diego Sanchez and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will be in attendance, as will local fighter Frank Mir and UFC President Dana White.

"We've all heard Dana make his proclamations about [MMA] is going to be bigger than soccer; it's going to be bigger than American football, and I think everyone at Fighters Only has the same belief and philosophy as Dana has," Hewitt said. "The heavyweight boxing champion was the most famous sportsman on the planet at one point in time. We believe that a mixed martial arts superstar can be that person as well."