Were guys like GSP, Anderson, and Rich Franklin legitimizing the sport?

[Steven_Universe]

Was that era of professionalism and calmness and game planning and representation of different martial arts styles what was making the ufc seen as more of a sport and less of a farce?

I remember when Dana used to bring Rich to interviews and parade him around as a smart educated guy who likes to fight.

I feel like the sport in 2013-2014 was seen as a more serious thing than today’s spectacle.

However guys like Jones and MacGregor are bringing in more PPV buys and revenue than ever seen before.

Are we in a better spot now because of them.

 

[fiftywattmafia]

 

[tenniswhiz]

“Better” is subjective.

I thought the sport was better before TUF 1 and before the Unified Rules.
Millions of new fans came in but I don’t care about them.

 

[Breaking]

Sure. Whatever. Seems like a real serious guy...

 

[tramendous]

Was that era of professionalism and calmness and game planning and representation of different martial arts styles what was making the ufc seen as more of a sport and less of a farce?

I remember when Dana used to bring Rich to interviews and parade him around as a smart educated guy who likes to fight.

I feel like the sport in 2013-2014 was seen as a more serious thing than today’s spectacle.

However guys like Jones and MacGregor are bringing in more PPV buys and revenue than ever seen before.

Are we in a better spot now because of them.

No it was seen as the opposite so ufc and dana tried harder to dispell that notion. Once they became more popular and realized they can make more money off the drama or that casuals dont care about it being a farce, they stopped fronting.

 

[tramendous]

Sure. Whatever. Seems like a real serious guy...

Cool shorts bro. Do they come in men's?

 

[Shenti]

Cool shorts bro. Do they come in men's?

u come in men

 

[dipstickjimmy]

@tenniswhiz I disagree and agree. It wasn't a sport before the unified rules really but bringing in new "Fans" by changing the foundation the UFC was built on to pander to the lowest common denominator is a turn off for me. It is "Better" for some as they are making more money at the very highest levels but for most their career prospects are lessened and they can easily be undercut by lesser fighters who are better salesmen. The Best vs The Best is a thing of the past in the UFC.

 

[Breaking]

u come in men

 

[JustOnce]

Was that era of professionalism and calmness and game planning and representation of different martial arts styles what was making the ufc seen as more of a sport and less of a farce?

I remember when Dana used to bring Rich to interviews and parade him around as a smart educated guy who likes to fight.

I feel like the sport in 2013-2014 was seen as a more serious thing than today’s spectacle.

However guys like Jones and MacGregor are bringing in more PPV buys and revenue than ever seen before.

Are we in a better spot now because of them.

No

 

[tramendous]

u come in men

I disagree. Men come in you.

 

['Rocky']

u come in men

 

[JustBleed69]

u come in men

 

[Platinum Perry Mason]

QUOTE="Shenti, post: 149401449, member: 466747"]u come in men[/QUOTE]

Come on men....
Let's be civilized.
Try loving one another Sherbrother.

 

[suhdude]

for sure ts. Back in the day even a dumb brute like carwin had a mechanical engineering degree. Now you can be a scrub fireman with a glass jaw and still be successful.

 

[the ambush]

Was that era of professionalism and calmness and game planning and representation of different martial arts styles what was making the ufc seen as more of a sport and less of a farce?

I remember when Dana used to bring Rich to interviews and parade him around as a smart educated guy who likes to fight.

I feel like the sport in 2013-2014 was seen as a more serious thing than today’s spectacle.

However guys like Jones and MacGregor are bringing in more PPV buys and revenue than ever seen before.

Are we in a better spot now because of them.

The truth is Jones and McGregor are more concentrated on building their own image via twitter. Generally, Franklin and the other classic era fighters you are referencing were true gentlemen and ambassadors.

If you remember at the time Nevada was hosting the majority of the UFC events. I do miss those days though.

 

[The Bard]

At one point, MMA seemed to be upholding traditional martial arts culture. Sure, you had the occasional entertaining asshole brawler like Tank who got away with it because, honestly, he was a fat white guy, but for the most part there was a lot of respect and humility.

I remember thinking it was a refreshing change from the tiresome braggadocio of boxing. There was Chael, but it was clearly an act. Then there was McGregor, who took it further. It was sometimes entertaining, but you could tell he liked the smell of his own farts.

Now it's a bunch of McGregor clones who aren't even entertaining but think that's how you get big fights. Because, well, it often is. So now it's worse than boxing.

 

[DustinBeaver]

A math teacher, a Michael Jackson impersonator, and a life coach walk into a bar...

 

[ferrisjso]

Was that era of professionalism and calmness and game planning and representation of different martial arts styles what was making the ufc seen as more of a sport and less of a farce?

I remember when Dana used to bring Rich to interviews and parade him around as a smart educated guy who likes to fight.

I feel like the sport in 2013-2014 was seen as a more serious thing than today’s spectacle.

However guys like Jones and MacGregor are bringing in more PPV buys and revenue than ever seen before.

Are we in a better spot now because of them.

Jones is a serious guy. McGregor was a serious guy until he went up to 155 and got a title shot for barely avenging his loss to a dude who would have been cut if he didn't have a personality. Only reason Jones is in danger of not being a serious guy is because of the casuals who want him to ruin the LHW division(again) by going up to HW to fight a guy he's beaten already. That ain't his fault, he resisted that BS for years and just recently wanted to do the right thing and only fight DC at LHW. But the annoying people are the one's who buy PPV's for spectacles.

UFC's main appeal over boxing was the unified division structure. Had a division, best guy fought the champ, the one unified champ, rinse and repeat. That's a sport. Boxing had split divisions with a bunch of different sanctioning bodies having different belts, and reached a point where people stopped caring about the label of the champion and the sport became about selling PPV's with "money fights", more than winning belts in a given division. UFC got more popular and the same BS is happening now where a growing number of fans don't want seperate divisions. Even to Conor's credit at least SAID he would defend two divisions and do two jobs at once. He didn't do it but at least he realized that champ was a responsibility and that he had to do both jobs if he won them, in good faith or not in good faith. Issue is not sure many fans care about divisions or champs and just want to see the best fight the best regardless of weight class. The sport wouldn't be around with that mindset, people can talk about the good old UFC 1 days all they want where everything was open weight but that shit almost got the UFC banned.

We are in a worse spot. Think it's cause of the new owners. Dana knows what the right thing is because he's said he wants to correct the mistakes of boxing. The Ferttitas were businessmen but they were trying to run a sport. Even the way they exploited their workers was pretty progressive taking money from their biggest stars who would still be well off and keeping their poor fighters happy. This isn't just more socialistic and fairer than most businesses who do the opposite but it also served a larger purpose of preventing single names from being bigger than the brand and keeping everyone replaceable and controllable. WME has no such governing philosophy, they are a business not a sport/business and since they've taken over the UFC's business strategy has went in the opposite direction.

Now the individual champs are more important than the championships or getting very close to that and once that happens you don't have a sport anymore you have a spectacle. Easy to just blame this on casuals but it trickles down to hardcore fans. If the best fighter in a division gets cheated out of shit constantly well the titles lose meaning and people stop caring as much cause they think the best fighter is someone else.

 

[HHJ]

I dont think people should expect too much from fighters in the professional sense. Some of these guys are heres because they love to get paid to beat the shit out of people. Guys like gsp amd machida and rich franklin stand out from the pack but i dont think everyone has to be like them.

Someone saying that i simply love to knock a guys teeth out and make eyes roll in the back pf their head is only being honest. But society,esp today dont want to hear this