Huntington Beach, California, 1997. 29-year-old Jeff Sherwood, an employee at Boeing, decided to create two websites – one for reviewing movies, and another by the name of ‘Sherdog’s UFC Fan Page.’ This little stunt, stemming from an idea from his colleague, who suggested that they should create websites in their downtime, would prove monumental for MMA and its fans. Yes, we’re talking about the inception of Sherdog. Just how big were they? Let’s just say it took thirteen years for their biggest competition to surface on the scene.

Sports media influencer Belle Pacheco took to Instagram and asked a niche question to UFC and MMA fans. She quoted, “Are you a Sherdog person or a Tapology person? When you’re looking at fighters’ stats, previous fights, all of that, which one of the two do you pick when you have a choice? Because without a doubt, I always click on Tapology.” In the post, she also shared a screenshot of a Google search for Tony Ferguson. And the results gave a hyperlink to both Tapology and Sherdog.

There you have it. The one true competitor to Sherdog – Tapology. But before we get to the debate and its results, let’s refresh our memories and inform the uninformed. Sherdog is the senior by thirteen years. The website was born in 1997, when Jeff Sherwood, the ‘computer guy’ at Boeing, decided to create ‘Sherdog’s UFC Fan Page’, using his nickname from school. This was just four years after the UFC had its first event in 1993.

Tapology came in much later in 2010. By that time, Sherdog had already been acquired by CraveOnline in 2007. What’s more, they had built an audience that now had the option to choose between the two sites. Sherdog built the game from the ground up. They were servicing hardcore fans (who were the only fans) long before names like Dana White and Joe Rogan entered the scene, and the UFC and MMA shot up in popularity. But do the fight fans have a preference? Did any of Dana White’s fighters choose between the two giants?

Yes. After securing a win over Brad Katona at UFC 297, Garrett Armfield expressed his feelings about Tapology. At the post-fight press conference, he said, “I’m a big fan. Also I go down the Tapology rabbit hole all the time. You guys ever click a name, you see it bring you to them, then you go to that name, you go to that name— I do a lot of research on fighters. Like my coach says, you have to be a student of the game or this game is going to pass you up.”

White himself has namedropped Tapology when asking fighters to apply to the UFC’s feeder shows like the Contender Series and The Ultimate Fighter. Does that mean Tapology has overtaken Sherdog?

Needless to say, the fighting community swooped down to the comments section of Pacheco’s post. And they already had a winner in their mind.

Sherdog or Tapology? UFC fans pick their go-to MMA source

Most of the fans had their thoughts aligned with those of the MMA influencer. The calls for Tapology as the better platform were louder. One fan claimed, “TAPOLOGY ON TOP.” Another fan added, “Tapology hasn’t failed yet!” It’s worth noting that both platforms provide the fighters’ records and previous fights. They provide the user with other information like age, height,  weight, associations, number of KOs, submissions, and many more. However, they do have a few differences. 

Tapology provides the fans with a bit more information about their favorite fighters, like their last fight date, career earnings, MMA record by promotion, and information about their other bouts away from the MMA cage. One fan weighed in on this and wrote, “Tapology. Sherdog has too much going on imo.” Another fan commended Tapology’s interface, “Was always sherdog before 2020 but tapology started to take over and has more up to date records now I think. And layout is just clearer.”

They may have a point. Tapology may be easier on the eyes for the younger audience who want what they are looking for with minimal effort. For some odd fighter profiles, you might see slight discrepancies in records, either due to updation errors or due to how certain bouts are counted as exhibition bouts. In such cases, the official UFC website stats tend to be more in line with Tapology than Sherdog. And there might be a reason for that.

Back in 2005, the UFC began denying access to MMA outlets, including Sherdog. Why would you not want one of the biggest names in the fandom promoting your business? Some claim it was because the UFC wanted to control what was said about them in the media. A claim that is still going strong today. But the UFC knew how strong Sherdog was. A few days after the ban, Dana White flew Josh Gross, one of the names who instilled journalism into Sherdog, to run the UFC website for a $28K raise. “I knew if I worked for him, I couldn’t do journalism. So I turned it down. I think that also has something to do with him not liking me so much,” Gross said.

Could all this history be the reason why some of the fans claimed that newer MMA fans opt for Tapology, while others prefer Sherdog? One fan commented, “OGs go sherdog, newer fans go Tapology.” Another fan wrote, “Sherdog just becuase I’m old and it’s been around since I started watching mma.” One more comment went like, “Sherdog for sure been using it for 10 years lol.” And yet, the clear winner was Tapology. Why do YOU think that is?