Can UFC create an actual mega star by their own hands?

[AimedWithV]

Ronda Rousey's popularity happened due to a social media finding her, unrelated to the UFC. It started with small shows/9gag/WWE mentioning. All UFC did was giving green light to her appearances outside of an MMA world.
Actually, it grew from Strikeforce. UFC didn't even find Rousey.

Conor McGregor has done all the PR and marketing work himself. He used some UFC platfom, but mostly he worked through his own social media and interviews given to MMA sites.

Brock Lesnar is a star created by WWE, entirely. UFC just rode the wave. Heck, he even brought his pro-wrestling fans to MMA, that actually got used to PPV system and fit UFC perfectly.


The only mega star that UFC can take a responsibility of creation is GSP. However, very strong Canadian support has strenghtened their PR attempts and broke through. GSP is lucky to be a Canadian, otherwise would UFC have succeeded the same way? I'm not sure.


What about now? Can they do it again? All the mega stars they have are on a very borrowed time, part of them probably will never come back.

P.S. I'm not mentioning "semi-stars" like Sonnen, Sage and Page, etc.

 

[Arm Barbarian]

It has to be a COMBO - The fighter PLUS the UFC promoting.

Conor has self-promoted like a bawse, but he has also gotten that push.

 

[SoSoSmart]

I heard of rousey before the UFC but she wasnt a star until she won that title. Same with conor. His social media did dick all, its the press conferences that got him to stardom. The UFC manufactures stars just fine.

 

[Rittsy]

Nope. Needs to be an interesting person plus the financial backing. Throwing money at Whitaker isn't going to make people want to see him compete.

 

[AimedWithV]

It has to be a COMBO - The fighter PLUS the UFC promoting.

Conor has self-promoted like a bawse, but he has also gotten that push.

Not sure that he really got the push.

A fight vs Brimage? A fight vs some wrestler (originally)/Holloway (eventually)?
A long period of injury - during that period, he did all the promotion by himself.
Main event in Dublin - well, that was obvious.

Never before he won interim title UFC did any special broadcast dedicated to him, and I don't remember commentators mentioning him when he did not fight.

I don't believe UFC contributed much to his promotion...

 

[AimedWithV]

I heard of rousey before the UFC but she wasnt a star until she won that title. Same with conor. His social media did dick all, its the press conferences that got him to stardom. The UFC manufactures stars just fine.

Technically, she became a star outside of UFC after Tate 2.
But UFC did not contribute much in it - on the contrary, TUF showed her in a bad light. Internet did not watch TUF, so they did not care.

And Conor's press-conferences were good - but before that, he did interviews heard all around the MMA, because he irritated other fighters. All MMA media was "Conor, Conor, Conor" - before any press-conference.

Not a manufacture by the UFC

 

[AimedWithV]

Nope. Needs to be an interesting person plus the financial backing. Throwing money at Whitaker isn't going to make people want to see him compete.

Who was throwing money on Conor? Fertittas? And how did it help his cause?
He wrote stuff and spoke on interviews for free...

 

[SoSoSmart]

Technically, she became a star outside of UFC after Tate 2.
But UFC did not contribute much in it - on the contrary, TUF showed her in a bad light. Internet did not watch TUF, so they did not care.

And Conor's press-conferences were good - but before that, he did interviews heard all around the MMA, because he irritated other fighters. All MMA media was "Conor, Conor, Conor" - before any press-conference.

Not a manufacture by the UFC

 

[AimedWithV]

No, these are facts. Whether you like it or not.

 

[SoSoSmart]

No, these are facts. Whether you like it or not.

 

[AimedWithV]

 

[XThe GreatestX]

They never have....literally ever. So I don't see why all the sudden they would be able

 

[Rittsy]

Who was throwing money on Conor? Fertittas? And how did it help his cause?
He wrote stuff and spoke on interviews for free...

Yes. He started it. The UFC saw an opportunity to invest in him. They saw he was popular, gave him spots on fan Q&As etc. and eventually funded a World Tour with Aldo.

Conor used every platform he had to make himself known. Eventually he got the backing of the UFC which pushed him from well-known in MMA to mainstream.

 

[AimedWithV]

Yes. He started it. The UFC saw an opportunity to invest in him. They saw he was popular, gave him spots on fan Q&As etc. and eventually funded a World Tour with Aldo.

Conor used every platform he had to make himself known. Eventually he got the backing of the UFC which pushed him from well-known in MMA to mainstream.

You know when Conor became the most talked-about fighter in MMA community? Pretty much after his fight with Holloway.
And all the Q&A came after a night with Dublin. World tour, in the point Conor held interim belt, was absolutely a no-brainer to do.

But you're correct in one thing: "eventually" he got UFC backing, this "eventuallly" though happened after he was already literally the most popular mixed martial artist in the scene.

So UFC indeed helped his mainstream case, but Conor did all the big, dirty job for them.
This is not how stars are created.

 

[Blanqa Blanqua]

They tried hard with Tim Silvia, but failed.

 

[MEAN357]

not enough to just be good nowadays. Gotta be on social media doing dumbfuckin shit for ppl to really fuck with you. especially ina niche market like MMA

 

[AimedWithV]

They tried hard with Tim Silvia, but failed.

What did they do? The only thing I remember is Joe Rogan comparing him to Fedor each fight...

not enough to just be good nowadays. Gotta be on social media doing dumbfuckin shit for ppl to really fuck with you. especially ina niche market like MMA

Nowadays? When was it enough?

And social media by itself is not enough as well. Tony Ferguson posts some idiotic and irritating stuff twice a day, does a world care? Accorging to UFC 216, not really.

 

[Blanqa Blanqua]

What did they do? The only thing I remember is Joe Rogan comparing him to Fedor each fight...

Cmon! They got him on that dating show.

 

[AimedWithV]

Cmon! They got him on that dating show.

Oh, with the alcoholic b!tch? They were responsible for this disaster? LOL

 

[Pakman]

UFC is pretty bad at actually producing any stars that are good fighters. Conor has the gift of gab and has backed it up with exciting fights that are generally stand-up based. He's Chuck Liddell 2.0 for them basically.

They keep hoping the PVZ/Sage type will somehow emerge as an actual top level fighter. I guess they'd be ok if somehow a guy like Ngannou became popular.

It stinks they can't take guys already who are skilled fighters but not great at using the mic to become stars.

They have so much of the footage already, I don't get why the UFC doesn't borrow some stuff that Pride used to do. Pride promo's for fights were 100x better than any I've seen in the UFC. They usually showed a more human element to each fighter. It gave people a reason to connect and root for the fighter. It wasn't just fighter A saying he's gonna prove he's the best, fighter B saying he's going out there to get the KO, Rogan popping up on the screen talking about how this is an unbelievable fight etc.