Manchester United’s Mary Earps won the main prize at the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in Salford on Tuesday – an event which celebrates the best of British sport.
But in the year British Mixed Martial Arts enjoyed its most-successful period it left many asking: Where was MMA?
While the 2023 SPOTY nominations list contained British athletes from six different sports, Britain’s two MMA champions – Leon Edwards and Tom Aspinall – were notably absent.
Despite having two world champions in the UFC – the premier competition in Mixed Martial Arts – neither man was nominated for the award, leading Clitheroe’s own Michael Bisping to argue that MMA is overlooked in awards ceremonies like SPOTY.
The UFC Hall of Famer said: “Yeah I do, I do. I mean I think maybe that’s changing. Hopefully one day.
“I got invited to the Sports Personality Awards years ago, I think in 2008. So I went along and that was a great night, me and my dad were there like little nerds taking pictures so that was nice but I wasn’t bloody nominated!”
Bisping also joked: “If they start giving them real recognition, this is not me, but people on Twitter are like ‘where’s the knighthood, where’s the OBE?’ Boxers get it. I’m starting a campaign right now, I want a f****** knighthood!”
Bisping won the UFC middleweight championship in 2016, knocking out the champion Luke Rockhold in the first round after accepting the fight on just 17 days’ notice.
He became the first British UFC champion and yet, did not make the 16-person nomination list for the 2016 Sports Personality of the Year Awards.
Atherton’s Tom Aspinall repeated this achievement last month as he followed in Bisping’s footsteps and accepted a title fight, also on 17 days’ notice, and knocked out Sergei Pavlovich to become interim heavyweight champion.
Outside of the sport, Aspinall has also been working to raise awareness for Autism after his four-year-old son was diagnosed with the condition this year.
The 30-year-old said: “I didn’t want there to be something wrong with my son. But when you start to learn about autism, you learn there’s not something wrong with them. It’s just a different way that their brains work.”
Yet, Aspinall was not nominated for this year’s award.
However, the biggest British MMA fighter who missed out at this year’s Sports Personality of the Year Awards was UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards.
Edwards recently defended his championship belt from American Colby Covington – Donald Trump’s favourite fighter – after the pair exchanged strong words in the build-up to the fight.
During the press conference before the fight, Covington made several malicious references to Edward’s father who was murdered in 2004, saying that after the fight Edwards would join him in hell.
Despite this, the 32-year-old Brit remained composed when it mattered most and comfortably defended his belt against the American, winning via unanimous decision.
Edwards extended his eight-year unbeaten run to 12 wins in a row, including back-to-back wins over the former pound-for-pound number one fighter Kamaru Usman.
A common argument against Mixed Martial Art’s inclusion in the awards is due to the violent nature of the sport.
Whilst knees, elbows and chokes may be seen as unpalatable to a British audience, boxing, an equally violent and more dangerous sport, is tied fourth for the most SPOTY winners since the awards started in 1954.
Five boxers have won the awards, the most recent being Welshman Joe Calzaghe, and Tyson Fury was recently nominated in 2021 and 2020 after winning the WBC heavyweight belt after defeating long-term rival Deontay Wilder.
Whilst a British MMA fighter has never been nominated for the main award, the sport has been recognised by the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards in another category, the World Sport Star of the Year award.
Khabib Nurmagomedov, the lightweight champion of the UFC from 2018-2020, won the BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year award – won by Erling Haaland this year – in 2020.
The Russian retired in October 2020 after defending his championship belt just months after the death of his father and long-term coach Abdulmanap, putting an end to his flawless career of 29 wins and no losses.
With boxing embraced by the British public and the Sports Personality of the Year Awards, and Khabib paving the way for a Mixed Martial Artist to win an award, there’s no reason that in future awards, fighters like Bisping, Aspinall and Edwards shouldn’t be recognised for their monumental achievements.
