The Octagon of Dreams

No one walks into an MMA gym for the first time as a champion. Before the belt, the cameras, the great arenas and the thousands of people waiting for a fight, there is a much smaller place. An ordinary gym. The smell of sweat on the mats, a heavy bag struck hundreds of times, a coach correcting a position, two exhausted bodies searching for enough strength to make it through one final round, a scale, hand wraps, worn gloves and the dull sound of someone hitting the mat. And behind all of it, a dream. In Spain, more and more young people are walking into places like this imagining something that, only a few years ago, seemed impossibly distant: becoming professional mixed martial artists, reaching a major promotion, fighting in front of thousands of people, making it to the UFC, becoming champions and, perhaps, becoming the next Ilia Topuria. Antonio Forfica, Diego Esteche and Isabel Calvo belong to this new generation of MMA fighters in Spain. Three names within a much larger movement, three people training and competing at an extraordinary moment in the history of the sport. We do not know how far they will go, and that uncertainty is precisely what matters, because this project does not photograph those who have already reached the summit. It photographs those who can still imagine themselves there.

Not all of them will make it. Probably very few will. Some will quit after a defeat. Others will discover that they cannot make a living from fighting. There will be injuries, jobs and studies that must coexist with training, personal relationships shaped by impossible schedules, and sacrifices that may one day cease to make sense. Many will spend years fighting in front of a few hundred or a few thousand spectators without ever knowing whether the call that could change their lives will come. But for now, they do not know how the story ends, and that is precisely why they continue. The Octagon of Dreams exists in that uncertain space between who we are and who we want to become. It is a project about MMA, but above all it is a project about those who have chosen to stake part of their lives on a possibility. And to understand the current MMA boom in Spain, and why that possibility now seems closer to a young Spanish fighter, we need to travel much further back: before Topuria, before WOW FC, before the UFC, even before what we now call mixed martial arts existed.

The idea of pitting different forms of combat against one another is ancient. The Olympic Games of classical Greece included pankration, a discipline combining grappling and striking within a contest governed by very few restrictions. It would be too simplistic to draw a straight line from those ancient fighters to contemporary MMA, but behind both lies a question that has crossed centuries and cultures: what happens when the boundaries separating different ways of fighting disappear? Boxers against wrestlers, judokas against karate fighters, striking specialists against submission experts. Throughout much of the twentieth century, these encounters retained something experimental about them. Each martial art defended not only a technique, but an identity and, very often, a claim to superiority. Brazil would eventually become one of the great territories in which that question was explored. For decades, the country developed the tradition of vale tudo, contests with few restrictions in which fighters from different disciplines could face one another. The Gracie family occupied a fundamental place in that history. Brazilian jiu-jitsu demonstrated that an apparently weaker opponent could neutralise a physically superior one by taking the fight to the ground, controlling position and using joint locks or chokes. Japan was simultaneously developing its own forms of hybrid combat, and organisations such as Shooto and Pancrase helped create spaces in which striking, wrestling and submissions were beginning to cease belonging to separate worlds.

On November 12, 1993, in Denver, Colorado, eight men entered an octagonal cage to provide a deliberately spectacular answer to that old question: which martial art was truly the most effective? The first Ultimate Fighting Championship brought together radically different styles and bodies. The weight divisions we know today did not exist, and the rules were far removed from those governing professional MMA now. Royce Gracie, considerably lighter than some of his opponents, won the tournament using Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His victory had consequences that extended far beyond the result itself. Thousands of martial artists began to understand that mastering a single discipline might no longer be enough. A fighter had to learn how to fight everywhere: standing up, against the cage and on the ground. Those early events also created an extreme image that came close to condemning the sport. For a significant part of American society, this was not competition but violence turned into spectacle. MMA had to transform itself in order to survive. Weight divisions, time limits, gloves, medical examinations, fouls and judging criteria appeared. The gradual adoption of unified rules created a recognisable sporting framework. The paradox is fundamental to understanding the history of MMA: for a discipline born from the possibility of combining almost every form of combat to grow, it first had to learn how to impose limits.

The fighter changed as well. Early UFC events could literally place specialists from completely different disciplines against one another. Over time, that stopped working. The boxer had to learn how to defend a takedown, the wrestler had to learn how to strike, the jiu-jitsu specialist needed to know how to remain standing, and the kickboxer had to understand what to do when his back touched the canvas. Gradually, asking which martial art was superior became meaningless. The modern fighter had to know them all and, above all, had to learn how to move between them: strike in order to take an opponent down, take them down in order to control them, control them in order to submit them, defend a submission in order to stand back up, use the cage, manage exhaustion and understand when to attack and when simply to survive. MMA ceased to be merely the sum of different martial arts and became a discipline in its own right.

As this was happening, the spectacle was changing too. At the beginning of this century, the UFC embarked on a business transformation that would take MMA from the margins of American sporting culture to a global audience. Television was decisive, the internet expanded its reach, and social media eventually changed the rules outside the cage. A fighter no longer existed only during the minutes of a bout. Fighters could construct a persona, show their training, tell the world where they came from, provoke an opponent, speak directly to millions of people and turn their careers into stories audiences wanted to follow. Conor McGregor understood that transformation as few others did. His enormous impact cannot be explained solely by what he did once the Octagon door closed. Press conferences became events, words travelled across the internet before punches were thrown, and fights began months before they actually took place. Other champions constructed radically different identities: Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, José Aldo, Ronda Rousey and Khabib Nurmagomedov. The sport understood something boxing had known for generations: audiences do not follow fights alone. They follow people, rivalries and stories. And somewhere within that transformation, a teenager sitting in front of a screen thousands of miles from Las Vegas could begin to think that one day he or she wanted to be there too.

The history of MMA in Spain unfolded for a long time alongside that transformation, but far from the spotlight. There were fighters, coaches, small events and gyms. There was passion and there was talent. What barely existed was a professional structure capable of turning that determination into a recognisable career. Spain, however, was present almost from the beginning. In March 1994, barely four months after the birth of the UFC, Alberto Cerro León competed at UFC 2 and became the first Spaniard to fight in the organisation. His appearance now belongs almost to the archaeology of Spanish MMA: it happened when the overwhelming majority of the country did not even know what it was watching. A long journey followed. MMA in Spain grew on the margins. Fighters had to search for places to train, places to compete and coaches capable of teaching disciplines that still largely existed in isolation from one another. The pioneers moved forward without a clearly marked road. Enrique “Wasabi” Marín and Abner Lloveras would later appear on The Ultimate Fighter. Juan Espino achieved a historic victory for Spanish MMA in 2018. Joel Álvarez demonstrated that a fighter developed in Spain could compete at the highest international level, and Dani Bárez continued opening the way. There were fighters before Spain discovered MMA on a mass scale. There were coaches, gyms, promoters and people who had spent years building a sport that barely existed outside its own community. What was missing was the ability to see the road ahead.

Within that history, two different phenomena would eventually meet. One has a name: Ilia Topuria. The other is the construction of a professional Spanish infrastructure capable of turning enthusiasm into genuine opportunity. In that second process, the emergence and subsequent growth of WOW FC has been fundamental. WOW FC was founded in Madrid in 2019, when Spanish MMA was still far removed from the position it occupies today. Its importance lies not simply in organising fight nights. A promotion creates something essential for any emerging sport: continuity, a place to compete, a showcase, an audience, a narrative and a possibility of moving forward. Talent needs places where it can become visible, and for years one of the great problems facing Spanish fighters was precisely the distance between training and building a genuine professional career.

WOW FC began to occupy that space, and its evolution has become one of the most visible expressions of the MMA boom in Spain. Events grew in scale, fighters found a platform from which to build records and visibility, audiences began to recognise names, and fights ceased to belong exclusively to small circles of dedicated fans. Production values, sponsors, audiences and venues began to tell a different story. The emergence of a Spanish promotion capable of sustained growth changes something essential for young MMA prospects in Spain: the UFC is no longer simply a distant destination on the other side of the Atlantic. Between the gym and Las Vegas, steps are beginning to appear. That matters far more than it might seem, because a dream needs a route.

And then came Ilia Topuria. Topuria did not invent Spanish MMA. When he reached the UFC, that previous generation already existed, but he did something none of them had achieved on the same scale: he made it visible to millions of people. Born in Germany to a Georgian family, raised for part of his childhood in Georgia and arriving in Spain as a teenager, he built a fundamental part of his career here. He made his UFC debut in 2020 and began winning while repeatedly expressing a certainty that many considered excessive. He did not speak about trying to become champion. He spoke as though he already knew he would.

On February 17, 2024, against Alexander Volkanovski, that conviction stopped being a promise. Topuria knocked out the man who had dominated the featherweight division for years in the second round and became UFC champion. The victory transformed more than his own career. Suddenly, Spain had a face through which it could understand MMA.

People who had never watched a fight began asking about the UFC. Mainstream media started devoting space to a sport that until then had largely existed within specialist coverage. Gyms received new enquiries. Children learned a new name. Social media multiplied every training session, every statement and every public appearance. Ilia Topuria ceased to be simply a fighter and became a figure in popular culture. Something even more important happened: others began imagining themselves in his place. Great sporting phenomena do not emerge simply when someone wins. They emerge when other people can begin to see themselves within that victory. Success makes the exceptional imaginable. Topuria did that for MMA in Spain. Not because anyone can reproduce his trajectory — almost no one will — but because a teenager walking into a Spanish gym today no longer has to look exclusively towards the United States, Brazil, Russia, Dagestan or Ireland to find a reference point. Someone built his career from Spain and reached the belt. A wall became a staircase. At the same time, WOW FC and the rest of the Spanish MMA ecosystem were beginning to build some of its steps.

That convergence helps explain the present moment. On one side stands a champion capable of turning MMA into a popular phenomenon. On the other, national structures are beginning to emerge that can absorb some of that new energy: increasingly specialised gyms, more experienced coaches, promotions, larger events, Spanish fighters reaching international organisations, growing audiences, sponsors and social networks capable of turning an unknown young fighter into someone followed by thousands before they have even reached the elite. The dream remains extraordinarily difficult, but it no longer seems absurd.

Antonio Forfica, Diego Esteche and Isabel Calvo exist within this moment. They are part of a generation of young MMA prospects in Spain currently making their way through the sport, although their stories are different and their destinations may be more different still. That is precisely what makes them interesting. To photograph an aspiring fighter is to photograph someone before the answer is known, before we know whether they will make it, and before victory or defeat retrospectively rearranges everything that came before. Elite MMA projects a spectacular image: huge arenas, choreographed entrances, championship belts, money, followers and sponsors. But the daily life of someone trying to reach that place is far removed from that image. The body becomes a professional tool before there is a profession. They have to train when nobody is watching, pay for equipment, travel and preparation, control their diet, recover from injuries, reconcile incompatible schedules, give things up and repeat the process. There is no guarantee waiting at the end. That is perhaps the fundamental difference between photographing a champion and photographing someone who dreams of becoming one. The champion possesses a history. The aspiring fighter possesses a possibility.

The price of that possibility is written on the body. MMA is a sport in which failure is difficult to hide. Inside the cage, defeat happens in front of everyone. Months of preparation can end in seconds. One mistake is enough: a punch, a submission, a judges' decision. Then the fighter has to return to the gym. The dream speaks of the belt, but reality speaks of the following Monday. And perhaps this is where the project finally stops being only about sport. Antonio, Diego and Isabel want to make it. Around them are many others pursuing the same thing. Each will have their own reasons, and each will establish their own boundary between what they are willing to sacrifice and what they are not. Some will reach major promotions. Others will remain on the national circuit. Some will quit. Others may discover that they do not know how to quit. We still do not know who will become whom.

Within this context, WOW FC represents something more than an organisation staging fights. It represents the emergence of a nearby arena where the dream can begin to confront reality. The cage is no longer only in Las Vegas. It is here, in front of their families, friends and coaches. An aspiring fighter can watch someone with whom they have shared a gym compete at a major Spanish event and then see that fighter move on to the international stage. Once again, the distance becomes shorter. That is why the growth of WOW FC and the Topuria phenomenon belong to the same story, even though they are different things. One constructs the imagination; the other helps construct the infrastructure. One demonstrates how far it is possible to go; the other offers somewhere from which to begin. Between them, a generation is emerging.

Social media adds another dimension. The contemporary fighter no longer competes only inside the cage. Fighters must also make themselves visible, construct an identity, show their training, gain followers, attract sponsors and generate interest. Sporting talent remains essential, but the contemporary economy of spectacle demands something more. You have to make people want to watch. Topuria also understands this territory. His public persona, confidence, statements, image and ability to generate attention are part of a new model of athlete. The young fighters coming behind him have grown up watching it. For them there is no clear separation between a sporting career and its public narrative. The two develop together. This adds a new pressure to the dream, because it is no longer enough to try to become a great fighter. You also have to look like one.

Yet when the cameras disappear and the noise ends, everything returns to the same place: the gym, the mats, the coach, the training partner who knows your weaknesses, exhaustion, fear and repetition. From the outside, MMA can look like a sport built around violence: two people locked inside a cage trying to physically impose themselves on one another. The violence is real, and pretending otherwise would be absurd, but around it exists an extraordinarily complex system of control, discipline, technique and respect. Fighters are constantly learning their own limitations. Every training session contains the possibility of being dominated by someone else. Every fight is a reminder that the confidence required to enter a cage must coexist with an uncomfortable certainty: everything can go wrong. Strength and fragility, ambition and fear, individuality and belonging, dream and reality coexist within the same space, and that contradiction also runs through these photographs.

Behind every fighter are also people who rarely appear when success arrives: coaches, teammates, families, partners and friends. Someone drives for hours to reach an event. Someone waits outside the dressing room. Someone helps when there is no money. Someone tolerates the absences. Someone is there after a defeat. Individual sports are rarely truly individual. A fighter enters the cage alone, but never reaches it alone.

Spain is now living through a moment that we may only fully understand once it has passed. The MMA boom in Spain is moving a culture that remained marginal for years towards an increasingly prominent place within the country's sporting landscape. Ilia Topuria has accelerated that transformation. WOW FC and other promotions are helping build a professional structure around it. Gyms are receiving a new generation, events are growing, mainstream media are paying attention, brands are beginning to look towards the sport, and young people know the names of techniques and fighters. Perhaps in ten years all of this will seem normal. Today, it does not. That is why photographing it now matters.

There is a natural tendency to photograph people once they have already achieved something: the champion raising the belt, the athlete entering the arena, the familiar face, the celebration. By then, however, a fundamental part of the story has already happened. The Octagon of Dreams attempts to look earlier. Antonio Forfica before we know how far he will go, Diego Esteche before the outcome is known, Isabel Calvo while the future remains open. The point is not to claim that any of them will become the next Ilia Topuria. To do so would destroy precisely what makes these photographs valuable. We do not know. Perhaps one of them will reach the UFC. Perhaps one will reach places that today seem impossible. If that happens, we will look back at these images searching for signs. We will try to find something in a gesture, a young body or the expression before a fight that retrospectively explains what came later. But the opposite may happen too. Perhaps none of them will reach that place. Then the photographs will speak about something else. They will speak about the years in which they believed they could, about what they were prepared to give, about training when nobody was watching, about defeats, friendship, the body, youth, determination, and that period in life when it is still possible to organise a significant part of one's existence around something that may never happen.

Then we may understand that the project was never really about finding the next Topuria. It was about finding those who were trying. Success belongs to a few, but the need to imagine a different future belongs to many more. Right now, as MMA undergoes its great transformation in Spain, hundreds of young people are walking into gyms imagining a future that barely existed for the generation before them. Topuria has demonstrated that someone can travel from here to the very top, and WOW FC, together with the new infrastructure of Spanish MMA, has begun to make visible a route that was once far more difficult to see. But nobody can walk it for them. Antonio, Diego and Isabel train, as many others train. They hit the bag, repeat a takedown, learn how to fall, get back up and try again. Outside the gym, ordinary life continues: studies, work, families, bills, relationships and problems. Inside, for a few hours, another possibility exists. We do not know whether any of them will one day walk into a great Octagon, or whether the dream will survive defeat, time and the demands of a life that will inevitably continue moving forward. The only certainty is that today they still believe it is worth trying. And perhaps it is precisely there, in that moment before the outcome is known, that the dream retains all its power.