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But for an organization and sport as adolescent as the UFC and MMA, the constant and rapid nature of change is borderline astounding. "I would say it's changed as drastically as it could," UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman states. "It's a completely different sport." Coleman, credited by many for bringing the ground-and-pound style into the fight game, was the UFC's first-ever heavyweight champion and won UFC 10 and 11. Back then in the mid-to-late ‘90s, the UFC was still, for the most part, a one-night tournament designed to determine the fighting style or art that was best. "The difference now is guys back in the day had their one-dimensional style," remembers Coleman, a former NCAA and Olympic wrestling standout. "It went in waves, first it was jiu jitsu, then it was wrestling. … Now, if you don't have skills in all three areas, you don't stand a chance." Alberto Crane, a former Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world champion, began his MMA career in 2002, quickly establishing himself as a submission specialist and winning lightweight titles in smaller organizations. "They weren't athletes like they are now," Crane recalls of his early days in the sport. "It wasn't even called mixed martial arts. …Guys were just good at one thing." After amassing an 8-0 record, he stepped away from the sport for two years until the UFC came calling in 2007. Still a submission wizard, he found himself on the losing end of lightweight battles against Roger Huerta and Kurt Pellegrino, because, while his jiu jitsu was world class, his all-around game hadn't caught up. "If you want to become champion, you have to be well-rounded," Crane says. "If you're not gonna be well-rounded, you're gonna be exposed." As Crane, a husband and father of three, continues to ply his trade in hopes of making it back to the bright lights and big stage that is the UFC, he supports his family as a mixed martial artist. He trains at this gym for boxing, at that camp for Muay Thai, bouncing from here and there in his quest to become a complete fighter, having opened his own Legacy Mixed Martial Arts gym in Southern California that will train mixed martial arts rather than just one area of combat, an idea unheard of years ago. "A lot more of our guys can do it 100 percent of the time," Goldberg says. Indeed, it appears the days of the part-time fighter are in the past. He has been replaced by the athlete, an eating, sleeping, breathing, fighting professional. "Now you can actually make a career out of it," Crane says. "It's pretty amazing." That as much as anything is responsible for the new-age fighter, a modern-day gladiator who diets, works out for strength, stamina and speed and is capable of taking a fight anywhere his opponent wants it to go. "Obviously, the fighters are much more highly prepared to step in the octagon," Coleman says. "Now, it's who's the best in all three areas, it's the best of the best. They're the best athletes and, probably, they're the guys working the hardest." So what is the future for the UFC fighter and those who aspire to become him? Many view St. Pierre as the ultimate picture of what will become of the next generation, a combatant who is free of strengths because he excels at everything, able to go five championship rounds, looking to knock his opponent out with hand or foot, sink in a submission or take him down and pound him out. But it's likely the next generation, like the current, will pass up its former sooner rather than later. "I think five years from now we're gonna be saying the same thing, that guys who used to be among the elite are no longer going to be able to do that," Goldberg predicts. "We continue to grow."
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