The "athlete" era is killing UFC - a.k.a. : A variation on the "UFC is Dying breh" theme

[D 1 Wrestler]

No.


Look at athletes from back in the day....They were usually faster, had pop in their punches, and GnP with power.


Right now MMA athletes are crap.


inb4 roiding excuse.

It's not an excuse though TS even mentions couture who was ripped and jacked at 40

 

[mmacasualviewer]

Lesnar, Mitrione & Mir are the closest to Tank Abbott the UFC will ever get now.

 

[Johnny Rosa]

It's also aging. I'm older now, have a family and a career. I'm not hardcore anything anymore. I used to be a hardcore Feyenoord-supporter, MMA-fan, drinker, user of partydrugs, weed-smoker, party-goer, womanizer (often failing though) and all that shit.

Also, in general I'm less interested. The hero's I grew up with are now retired or are plain shit nowadays. After Spider, Overeem and Shogun retire there is no-one left.

It's hard to become so connected to the next generation of fighters. There is no nostalgia, you've seen it all before and you havent evolved togeather (as a fan and a fighter over the years).

Outside of the fact that it's a bit weird to idolise someone who's 10 years younger.

And to throw in a subjective fact as well: The new generation of fighters wine about money and money fights, talk about attendance and feel the need to smacktalk. That's not for me (even though amusing from time to time)

TLDR?? Fuck off then and grow an attention span

 

[heatbag]

There are many exceptional fighters with unique persona\style today, they are just buried among too many ham n eggers.

 

[capnlarge]

You might be the only one nostalgic for Tim Sylvia...

 

[DespicablePeep]

MMA is de-evolving from a Mortal Kombat -like freakshow to a sport full of technicalities and intricacies, kinda like Tennis.

Agree on the Mortal Kombat aspect, but the quality of fighters in LHW and HW have hit rock bottom.

Not only past LHW/HW were larger than life but they were also great fighters.

 

[SuperSuperRambo]

I'm not buying it. "Back in the day" of the guys you are waxing nostalgic about, people were already saying exactly the same thing about the prior era. 10 years from now, people will be talking about this era, making the exact same claims why it used to be better. Don't get me wrong, an era of sport can be objectively better than a present era, but I don't think that is the case here and I don't think that is killing the sport.

 

[SuperSuperRambo]

Agree on the Mortal Kombat aspect, but the quality of fighters in LHW and HW have hit rock bottom.

Not only past LHW/HW were larger than life but they were also great fighters.

Really? Do you think that Tito Ortiz and Wanderlei Silva were better fighter than Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier?

 

[Goodfella86]

Thar first paragraph turned me off, to be honest. If you have the same level of interest in mma that you did 5 years earlier, you haven't evolved? I don't think there's anything wrong with being a true die-hard fan. I was a fan of the sport when it was regarded as lower than the monster truck scene. And now, 15 years later, I'm still a hardcore fan after cycles and cycles of casuals coming and going. There's some sort of integrity in that.

 

[Hoop]

ANABOLIC STEROIDS

The Foster guzzling, shrimp barbie eating Austrian is right.

Back in the day, some fighters didn't know how to survive GNP or a wrestler was like a fish out of water when he was on his back. Most fighters know the fundamentals of how to get out of situations fighters back in the day didn't know how to.

And, a good portion of them were juiced up to their tits.

 

[TheVenom]

I wouldn't say generic. The fighters we liked back in the day are retired or declining. UFC doesn't have many stars. Rousey is MIA and McGregor may never fight again, after his bout with Floyd. Who knows?

You have small favorites like Cerrone. Here, in Colorado Springs, a lot of people are fans of him. Same with Pennington. UFC does a bad job pushing good fighters to the spotlight while investing into relatively green fighters like Sage and PVZ.

Remember when Rousey was set to face Nunes? If I hadn't known of Nunes before, I wouldn't have a clue who she was leading up to that fight. UFC acted like she didn't exist. Now, we have a woman's 135lb champ with grenades for hands... and casual viewers don't seem to know her. Not in my city, anyway.

 

[Dave Poodle]

Back then to a lot of the general public MMA was this new extreme thing - just a fad. Now it is just another sport and one that many regular sports fans just see as barbaric.
It was always going to be a problem for MMA if the most entertaining fighting styles weren't the most successful.
Now we're in the same position as boxing - a few fighters will capture the mainstream public here and there but the vast majority won't follow the sport or care to be educated on it and they'll probably be more interested in press conferences and interviews than fights.

 

[DespicablePeep]

Really? Do you think that Tito Ortiz and Wanderlei Silva were better fighter than Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier?

Rampage, Machida, Shogun, Rashad, Chuck, Vitor, Couture there was more depth even though those names did not fight under the same org in their primes and some switched between weight divisions.

Won´t even address Jones as he is one of a kind, but I´m sure most of those guys would give Cormier a good fight.

 

[A.S. Deep]

I actually agree. Wand stomping people >>> trash talk any day. The fighters of old seemed more unhinged and more ballsy which makes them more memorable. Think of Saku and BJ.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

I really hate all of the disgusting hipster dipshits that people like Conor and Cody have brought into the sport.

 

[froggyluv]

Im 46 and been training since 1997 as well as an avid watcher like the old Pride, UFC and World Combat Championship (still my favorite) and Ive def lost interest as of late. Mostly because of the 'Bad antics = $$$' - attitude that pervades the sport now -I dont give a f*ck how many Ferraris you got in your driveway because you called someone a lil b*tch 500 times..

OP is right. Earlier guys were there to just fight and win and hopefully get a meal out of it -but they were entertaining as f*ck -something these newer 'showboat for the mic''ers are not.

Oh well -i still train and spar and have fun with the sport itself -funny some of the higher lever Muai thai guys at my gym have no idea who Bisping or really any of the current champs are. The UFC brand has been diluted despite the fact that it sports very, very good athletes - it just sold itself out is all

 

[cshireman4]

So the guy who smokes Chael's pole around the clock wants to call out athletes for ruining a sport?

 

[gb@Trumpski]

You do not want Mortal Kombat. You want WWE.

Go back to pro wrestling and never come here again, inbred.

/thread.

look at this dummy ^^^

hey dumbo, OP is an analysis of why UFC is struggling, not a whinge

 

[BangersAndSmash]

There's a mix of factors that have led MMA into it's current state:

• Only two title defense streaks remains intact, ones is in the house of mouse, and the other is at Women's straw-weight. Andy, GSP, and even Jones (at least for now) are figures of yesteryear. Even if you prefer attitude over wins, it's kinda hard to argue that most stars are champions with long win streaks.
• The biggest current star in MMA has held up two divisions with uncertainty and decided to pursue a big ticket boxing match instead of defending either of his two titles (regardless of whether it's better for him, it's most certainly not better for the UFC).
• Many divisions appear to be aging out of relevance (HW withstanding, I think there are solid prospects on the horizons in most divisions).
• Uncertainty plagues most divisions. For many of the upcoming fights this year, it's hard to predict whether a champion will fight a number one contender, let alone whether said champion will retain their belt or lose it. For all that people say they love the fact that "anything can happen", the reality is that people like seeing a clear-cut dominant champion who only gets beaten by the next best, not a close to fifty-fifty fight where one guy wins one night, and the other guy wins the night after, or a belt that just keeps changing hands every fight.

I think things will get better once the new fighters who can stay at the top are found, and I do believe they are out there.

 

[bladee]

its not just hardcore/casual fans, theres also something called being a real fan

hardcore fan (low cerebral activity) - watches everything
casual fan (low cerebral activity) - watches only the biggest fights
real fan (high cerebral activity) - watches only the best/highest calibre fights

whats happening is all the "hardcore" fans who enjoyed the sport 10 years ago are like 30 and 40 years old these days, they dont understand the internet or social media so obviously they are gonna feel and be left behind