Undisputed Career Mode Guide: Our Tips to Become Champion

As fun as it is to setup a few dream fights here or there, the best part of Undisputed is easly the game's extensive career mode. Undisputed was in early access for much of the year getting fine-tuned on PC, but it's now officially launched on consoles as well. No matter which fighting style or weight division you're in, becoming a champion is the end goal of any Undisputed career mode run. We've got all the best tips you need to make every week count and get the most out of everything your boxer has to pay for.

Undisputed Career Mode Beginner's Guide

When first starting a new career mode save in Undisputed, you'll have the option of choosing a fighter from the game's existing roster or creating your own. If you choose one of the game's licensed fighters, you'll still be starting at the beginning.

Even if you're using prime Muhammad Ali, you'll still set his age to 18 (or higher, but keep in mind that retirement is forced at 50 years old) and customize your initial ratings. However, you will not be able to change his fighting style, punch style, or appearance in any way. Otherwise, your career mode journey is pretty much the same.

Before you get into the normal career mode hub, there's an optional amateur tournament. While this isn't required, it's recommended for most players as it'll help you get a feel for how your boxer feels in the ring before diving into professional fights with higher stakes. It also lets you rack up a little bit of XP and attribute progression, so it's always worth doing.

Once you're in the hub, the general flow of career mode in Undisputed will see you negotiate a new fight, manage your staff, and upgrade your fighter as the journey towards a championship continues. The in-game tutorials will give you a decent idea of most aspects, but a few more tips can help set your boxer up for a legendary run.

Fight Negotiations

Choosing an opponent for your next fight, especially early on, is best done within the few your manager puts together offers for. Manually selecting an opponent is an option best saved for later on when you've got a better manager and are more familiar with custom negotiations. The earliest managers will likely struggle to make significant changes to each fight offer, but it's often safe to make a few tweaks even when choosing from the preset trio.

As a general rule, never take the offer you're first presented with. Push the purse cut at least another 3% to 5% in your favor. Better managers and raising your own fame will give you a better chance of negotiating even larger payouts, but small tweaks can still frequently be accepted early on.

If you spot a fight that's particularly beneficial to your current standing, whether it's got a huge purse compared to your current funds or a big fame boost, it's good to negotiate a rematch clause. This will automatically set up two fights rather than just one, and that will give you double that significant payout and fame gain. If there's a big fame boost and you're not as tight on money, push the fight promotion percentage to the max.

Four weeks is standard, and fight camps of that length are usually best done with three training activities and a recovery in week four. The more training weeks you can negotiate, the more media activities and other ratings boosts you can fit in. It can also be tempting to risk going without fight insurance, but odds are that's when you're gonna get an untimely injury and lose more money than you saved.

Fight Camp Training

Next up, you have to choose a gym for the fight camp as you prepare. Once you've got enough fame and money to get St. Andrew's Sporting Club, that's the best option for quite some time. Santiago's Gym isn't bad if you want to ensure no minor injuries pop up during the camp, but the Training XP Bonus is lower and St. Andrew's gives bonus fame from media activities.

While upgrading your fighter, stick to St. Andrew's for the most part until you can unlock the Technicolor Gym. That's an expensive option, but it's more than worthwhile when you can afford it. You'll get an even higher Training XP Bonus and won't risk overtraining. Past that, things get extremely expensive and are mostly situational. You may not want to pay Technicolor Gym prices every fight, so stick to St. Andrew's if money is tight. For the most part, your early journey will be a rinse and repeat of these steps as you build up your fighter during each camp. 

Coach, Cutman, and Manager

The other key thing you'll be changing over time is your coach, cutman, and manager. Quincy Santiago and Amer Abdallah are great options once unlocked thanks to high negotiation skill, but otherwise just be sure not to pick someone too expensive for your current finances. Cutman is going to depend largely on how effective you are in fights and how often they go into deeper rounds.

If you're a power fighter looking for an early knockout every single time, you save a good bit of money by just using a cheap cutman. The advantage of a cheap cutman is also that their contract break cost tends to be low. If you can power through a camp despite an injury, after it you can sign a more expensive coach with higher surgery and physio skills to recover from injury faster. Just make sure you can afford to pay for the injury recovery, as some can be fairly cheap but others may take thousands for a single weekly recovery attempt.

Finally, your coach is the most important team member. Early on it can be tempting to pour the little bits of Coach XP each fight into your first coach, but you should check their traits before doing that. All training categories can be powered up, so even a D-Tier coach could become an A-Tier one, but their traits will remain the same. Save your Coach XP until you have access to a D-Tier coach that has traits you're happy with in the short-term. At that point, pour every single bit of Coach XP you get into the categories you most want to train.

Power punchers should drop it all into Strength and focus fight camp training on those skills, and the same goes for any skill that helps your fighting style. If you keep it up, you can get a B-Tier or A-Tier coach significantly boosting your ratings in training while still paying D-Tier prices. Once your ratings are mostly where you want them and you're more in need of specific traits, find the coach that fits and make the switch.

How to Become Champion in Undisputed

Past that, most of your career mode journey in Undisputed will be down to your own skills. Playing on a low difficulty can make having a dominant streak on the way to a title more doable, but you'll crank up the intensity and make each fight seem more significant with a higher difficulty. Just make sure not to invest in a save for a difficulty that's out of reach or style you don't enjoy. Spend some time in Quick Fight first and feel out the style you prefer and how capable you are on each difficulty level.

Championship opportunities will appear in your regular fight selection once you've gotten high on the rankings, so just keep on grinding. Most title matches will include a rematch clause, and you should be careful about taking that away in negotiations. If you're defending the belt and lose with no rematch clause, it may take a few more fights before you get another title shot. Just take things one fight at a time, and those titles wil come once you've proven your skill in the ring.