Fight Within a Fight: Negotiating Narratives in a UFC Bout's Hype Videos

Abstract: This paper critically examines how controlled violence and hyperbolic hype narratives in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) are potent in shaping sports-media discourse by interrogating the symbolic and formal representations embedded in the lead-up to and aftermath of the high-profile UFC 268 rematch between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington at Madison Square Garden, New York. Our analysis of the promotional videos for this monumental fight and the YouTube comments accompanying those videos, using the Burkean–small stories analysis method we developed, reveals how differing audience perspectives negotiate the interplay between politically charged narratives and performative spectacle. The findings argue that while the UFC exploits narratives of conflict interspersed with tinctures of identity politics to purposefully court controversy in a bid to garner massive viewership, their narratives hold the potential to enrich democratic discourse as they forge a fertile ground for pluralistic public engagement. This study underscores the need to explore further how commercialized media spectacle can mobilize broader narrative engagement and foment sociopolitical and cultural divisions.