In my opinion, MMA is the most global sport in the world in terms of where the top competitors come from, I mean sure Soccer is older and is probably the most played sport in the world but there have been 21 world cup tournaments and only 7 teams have become world cup champions, with brazil winning 5
Ok so MMA and Soccer have that in common
But at the top of each of the UFC’s Divisions, there are fighters from all over the world. Sure we see certain countries stand out like Brazil and more recently the Dagestan region of Russia and of course since the UFC is an American company there will be a decent amount of American representation. But we see talent from all over the world, people like Zhang Weili, Francis Ngannou and even Conor Mcgregor are from countries that you wouldn’t think of if someone asked you where top fighters came from. Even for us here in Canada, we have a claim to one of the greatest fighters of all time in Georges St-Pierre.
But since GSP we haven’t had a Canadian UFC champion and since Rory Macdonald left for Bellator we haven’t had a real top ten Canadian fighter. We obviously have Canadian representation with a few fighters sprinkled into the roster, not to mention that one of the top MMA gyms in the world, Tristar Gym, is in Montreal. But let’s be fair, besides hockey and curling, Canada isn’t really known as a sports powerhouse, and I mean we’ve only ever had two UFC champions Carlos Newton (who I actually met in Ikea once) and GSP and I bet most people reading this haven’t even heard of Carlos Newton.
But I don’t think it's going to stay like that for long there are a ton for MMA gyms and a ton of fighters in just Ontario alone (trust me, I’m one of them) and there are local promotions like our own BTC Fight Promotions that give local fighters a chance to show their skills and put their names out there. So I don’t think that the question is should there be more Canadians Fighting in the UFC, but when will there be more Canadian fighters in the UFC.