What the hell is WME doing?

I really don't think that the demise of the UFC will be any good for the sport.

It's best that all the fighters are put in one org.
 
Ari runs the UFC about as well as his brother runs Chicago.
 
This is beautiful...they appear to be fucking up so badly that it could end the monopoly stranglehold that the UFC has over MMA.

The more players/promotions there are, the better the pay and benefits will be for the fighters.

I'm all for WME continuing to fuck shit up.

As a fan, why would you actually hope for the talent to disperse across multiple smaller organizations and never face one another...???
 
Idk, but I hope they keep it up and end up killing the UFC monopoly for good.
Monopoly is dying


Alec-font-b-Monopoly-b-font-Angel-and-crutches-graffiti-wall-art-canvas-modern-paintings-cuadros.jpg
 
As a fan, why would you actually hope for the talent to disperse across multiple smaller organizations and never face one another...???
1. high quality mma every week instead of just relying on one source
2. more fighters out there means more orgs get legit guys thus get more attention/become more legit
3. more competition means higher financial opportunities for fighters
 
MMA does not get better if Bellator gets better, infact it gets worse.

The best fighters should all be under one roof just like the best football players are in the NFL and the best basketball players are in the NBA.
 
They're making Bellator relevant again for the first time in years

Which I'm not sure is a great idea but hey what do I know
 
Fertitas had a passion for the sport.. WME bought it as an investment. Looks to me that they want to have lots of small shows with low buys filled with low end fighters with the odd big pay per view.
This^^^^

It's like comparing a billionaire CEO with a passion for his business to a venture capitalist. Many confuse the two as being similar because they are big wigs but the Venture capitalist only cares about cash flow and will downgrade the product if necessary. It's how well made designer clothes end up being mass produced in a factory and losing their quality.
 
I think they want to go the route of letting prospect develop in other leagues and then hoping when they get enough hype they will want to sign back to the UFC
 
Aside from Misha, who they should've kept cuz of lack of young good LHW's, these more high-profile guys aren't make or break fighters for the company's success, yet they're good enough for a high base pay. IMO, none of those guys will be champ so they're not really fucking up but making tough, but necessary cuts/lack of resignings because they can't pay every good fighter and still get their money back.

Not getting Rory is that type of make or break fuck-up which they can't keep repeating since he's already an elite WW with potential to grow and is a big name from GSP-land. Cutting Shields/Okami/Torres/Fitch didn't make the UFC worse and those are better fighters than the ones mentioned. Smaller roster, big picture.
 
They'll fuck it up (it's already going that way), in steps the Fertitas to buy it for a million, then they bring it back.
 
I really don't think that the demise of the UFC will be any good for the sport.

It's best that all the fighters are put in one org.
I've seen a lot of back and forth on this, and it seems to me that most people who disagree with you really just do so out of spite for the UFC. I loved Pride and miss it to death, but the post Pride era of MMA from 2007-2014 really was a Golden Age of MMA. We constantly had epic matches, so much so that super fights weren't even a thing that could be made anymore since all the best fighters were fighting each other, barring a very, VERY few exceptions. One thing the UFC under Zuffa always did a good job of was having legitimate matchups and legitimate contenders to the best of their ability. So when they acquired Pride, and later other orgs with top talents, we were given the best product MMA could be.

I don't want the UFC to fail, unless they keep running the way they are now. I honestly have a pretty pessimistic view of the way things have gone the last 2 years, with people talking their way into undeserved title shots, creating fake belts constantly, standing up paper thin divisions without the talent to support them and FUCKING Reebok. If they continue that way though, I guess it might as well lose some market share because I just don't like what they are doing with it.
 
The beginning of the end of the UFC was the Reebok deal, Bellator can now pay the UFC athletes less while allowing sponsors to compensate there pay.

There giving up top talents, while there really is no new legitemate stars coming up in the UFC. Who do they have ?? Micky Gall?? Sage?? Look how old there MW division is, in 5 years there all going to be over 40.

Already WW is comparably competitive with Bellator.

LHW is doing that great, but where do we see it in 5 years from now??

And HW has always been awful.

Bellator is 5 years away from overtaking the UFC
 
It didn't suck at all. It led to better cards from all of those organizations.

People cry about matchmaking and fights not happening just as much now as they did then. The UFC's current matchmaking is awful, and we're seeing top fighters fight less than ever. Look at Jacare. In SF we saw him fight regularly. In the UFC, far less and against weaker competition usually. Worse yet, the UFC is so slow with matchmaking their top fighters that we see top fighters sit on the shelf for months at a time with no fight lined up.

MMA was better with multiple orgs. They have to actually compete with each other then to put on good cards.

I agree that there were some good non UFC cards and Pride was awesome, but I like to see who the best is. There was a shit ton of fights that would have never happened if the leagues remained split. I'm not really a fan of individual fighters as I am the sport as a whole.

Look at how boxing is run. GGG Canelo may never happen. Floyd Pac was made 4 years too late and 3/4 of the ppv's are showcase fights with a shitty undercard. More orgs is better for the fighters, but shittier for the fans.

We would have never saw...

Brock Overeem
Chuck Wand
Nog Couture
Nog Sylvia
Shogun Chuck
Hendo Anderson
Cain Nog
Condit GSP
Edgar Aldo
Cormier Jones
Cormier Rumble
Mir Nog
Cowboy Diaz
Cro Cop Gonzaga
Hendo Bisping
Shogun Forest
Barnett Mir
Mark Hunt Bigfoot
JDS Overeem
GSP Diaz

And many more.
 
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because they're, in their opinion, overpaying top fighters.

That attitude is what is going to sink the UFC.

MMA is the lowest paying profession for athletes, and the new owners of the biggest profession want to pay them even less.


Ten years ago, I would proudly have encouraged an athletic teenager to get into MMA. Now, I'd suggest about any other sport.
 
Not all of the fighters you mentioned were cut. Some tested free agency and found better deals for themselves.
 
I think their bussines model is not very good and by this way, it will lead to the less profit, than Zuffa era. As I see it now:
1. They cut the roster and let solid guys go elsewhere (Bader, Misha...)
2. Their intentions is to make less cards for year, thats why they cuting crew(managers for europe and Canada).
3. Cut fighter will go to other leagues and make them grow, by improving their roster(Ortiz, Sonnen in Bellator made good numbers).
4. Other leagues will grow up by their new stars, which UFC built before, and UFC will go down by reducing events.
5. Other leagues will have much more space in media and that will equalize all of them on almost same level.(2 UFC events, 1 Bellator event and WSOF event in 1 month and maybe 1 more player will enter the game).

Making lot of events, and being biggest league made UFC succesfull and this:
Dana-Fertittas.png
 
WME has created an environment where the employees and fighters know everyone is expendable regardless of if they perform or not. I don't see how this is supposed to better and streamline the promotion, I personally am laughing at how they've handled the first year, its going to bite them in the ass down the road. Fighters now have viable options to get paid elsewhere, not have their privacy fucked with (USADA) and deal with legit favoritism that's really Busch league. The other promotions will get popular and rise from the ashes, WME won't buy out the competition anymore, once Dana is gone it'll fall apart.
 
Yeah so far, in terms of their letting fighters go and match-making / cards, these guys are actually making Zuffa look Einsteinian.

It's actually surreal...I miss The Mob Bros and Joe Silva.

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