***An Urgent Statement on the Culture of the UFC***

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Too much is at stake to just "try something else". They wont abandon this tried and tested model while theyre growing. Maybe if they stagnate. Likely if they decline.

Just ignore it.
 
For those that did not read (I just woke up after getting half way through), the TS is Canadian & butt hurt that GSP is not fighting any more, as well as displaying his public affection & lust for Miesha Tate by being a twat in tin foil instead of a knight in shining armour....
 
WarPenn said:
One typo makes someone illiterate. Got it. I'm really sad Bj Penn has you as a fan. He deserves better.
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Yeah, BJ deserves a fan who calls someone a "femanist" because he thinks Goldie and Rogan are fucking shit.
 
I don't care how people view UFC or MMA. All I care about is good fights.
 
OnlyTheTruth said:
For those that did not read (I just woke up after getting half way through), the TS is Canadian & butt hurt that GSP is not fighting any more, as well as displaying his public affection & lust for Miesha Tate by being a twat in tin foil instead of a knight in shining armour....
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- Not Canadian
- Not a GSP fan
- Don't fancy Miesha any more than numerous other WMMA stars

So you were wrong on all counts. Well done.
 
The violence aspect of mma tends to attract people of a lower vibratory rate. Now this doesn't mean that they aren't as "good" as someone else, but it is just their current state of mind/being. And this state of being is reinforced by popular culture more than the integrity/discipline aspect of it. I am a fan of UFC and martial arts, but respect fighters and fans who realize it is a discipline and act accordingly.
 
Kelman said:
I don't know about you fellas, but I'm becoming gravely concerned and even very disillusioned with the culture of the UFC.

I love the sport, love the fighters, and would love to see it evolve, and become more widely understood and respected, to gain further credibility as a brilliant sport which showcases elite-level athletes in often thrilling exchanges of technique and battles of will.

However, I think this is not actually happening and is not going to happen any time soon, primarily because of the culture that the UFC has created around the in-cage endeavour.

This was way too long, apologies guys. Let the DIDN'T READ LOL's begin!! :)
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Take 2 of these, and call me in the morning...

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Fertittas are selling Zuffa in a year or two. Dana and Rogan are on their way out.
 
Kelman said:
Except he doesn't know what he is talking about at all unless they're on the mat. He doesn't have 1% of the overall knowledge of Dominick Cruz or Brian Stann. You can keep your meathead idiots, give me the pro's.
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Joe Rogans striking > Brian Stanns striking
 
Kelman said:
I don't know about you fellas, but I'm becoming gravely concerned and even very disillusioned with the culture of the UFC.

I love the sport, love the fighters, and would love to see it evolve, and become more widely understood and respected, to gain further credibility as a brilliant sport which showcases elite-level athletes in often thrilling exchanges of technique and battles of will.

However, I think this is not actually happening and is not going to happen any time soon, primarily because of the culture that the UFC has created around the in-cage endeavour.

But the fact that it's hampering the progress of the sport is not the only reason why I'm writing this, it's also a question of my own disillusionment as a fan, this stuff is now seriously compromising my enjoyment of the product as a whole, because the culture surrounding the fight themselves is obviously a huge part of the organization and the sport.


I am referring to what's commonly known as the "bro" culture of the UFC; the informality of the organization's PR, media relations, governance of the fighters... an informality which straddles outright unprofessionalism.

"Bro" culture really began in the UFC with the Zuffa purchase, then grew with the advent of TUF, and the rises to prominence of Dana White and Joe Rogan... and the thing is, initially, it was the right approach and it worked. In the mid 2000s, there was no Fox deal and there was no Ronda Rousey & WMMA and there were no stadium shows, so to try and cast the UFC straight into the mainstream sports world which was wholly unprepared for it would have failed dismally. White, Rogan et al played it perfectly, by fostering the informal "bro" culture on Spike TV and in their broadcasts, and thereby building a lasting fanbase of the people most ripe for this product (males aged 18-35).

It was right, it worked, and it yielded results.

But, without one single shadow of a doubt, the times have changed and the culture is all wrong now, all wrong, and is not only constraining the UFC largely to the same cross-section of fans it attracted ten years ago, but is becoming so absurd and unpalatable that it appears to be turning off a lot of loyal fans such as myself, who are becoming very jaded with the persistence of the current set-up.


Some points:

- The UFC now has to do without GSP's regular 600-900,000 PPVs draw and the Canadian fans have to do without their champion because of the tough-talking straight-shooter Dana White's deplorable and disrespectful behaviour towards him at the UFC 167 postfight presser. At the time, I thought he was an unprofessional disgrace, this was highlighted by several MMA media voices including Luke Thomas, and now the cost of it is clear. Ask yourself, in which other big-business sport would the head of an organization have spoken so aggressively and so disrespectfully to one of the sport's greatest ever???

- It's pretty clear now that the UFC permitted a fighter they knew was on steroids (Belfort) to face Jones in the main event of UFC 152. I really don't think enough has been made of this - surely Jones would be perfectly well within his rights to sue the UFC, the NSAC, and Belfort over this? Especially the UFC. They basically put his life at risk by allowing him to fight someone who was artificially enhanced. This is amoral at best, and considering White's wild and petulant reaction to Jones and his camp after the UFC 151 cancellation, it doesn't feel like a leap in the dark to suggest that there was some petty vindictiveness, or at least a scan disregard for his welfare, at play in that decision/deception.

- The "bro" culture has now got to the stage where we have the two most well-known faces and voices of the organization, White and Rogan, abusing a female athlete in the media, making the kind of jokes that 12 year old boys would make at school. White says Cyborg looks like "Wanderlei Silva in a dress", Rogan makes jokes about her having a "dick", I mean, again I have to ask, in what other sport would horribly disrespectful abuse of an athlete like this ever, ever happen, as perpetrated by the head of the largest organization and its most prominent commentator?? Beyond ludicrous.

- Just Rogan. He gets a point all of his own. The guy is the main co-commentator/analyst of the main showcase UFC numbered events, and is in such a place of prominence within the sport, on account of the favour shown to him by the UFC. In 2015, is this guy really viable anymore? We've already covered his awful comments about a female athlete, but there is so much more unsavoury nonsense from this guy. I believe he damages the sport on a fairly regular basis with his mixture of childish comments, brazenly biased commentary, embarrassing hyperbolic statements, credibility-eroding flip-flopping, and that woeful, woeful podcast, where him and all his fellow meathead bro's sit around drinking each other's kool-aid like a bunch of 18 year old fratboy idiots. The sobbing over Ronda was, as I've said before on here, the most pathetic, most fake, most cringeworthy moment in UFC history. The guy has to go.

- Which brings me on to a related point - removing Rogan would hopefully cut any connection, any link, between the organization and the "bro" culture internet flotsam such as the Joe Rogan Experience, The Fighter and the Kid, etc. Callen and Schaub are just as bad as Rogan, sitting in some basement s******ing away at some of the least funny, most knuckleheaded, infantile rubbish imaginable, while endlessly repeating "yeah bro, you're my boy" while offering nothing of any interest whatsoever. Obviously this utter trash, this excrement, would still be being produced even if Rogan was cut loose, but at least there wouldn't really be a link from it to the UFC, as from what I've observed, these shows appear to be considered an extension of UFC media, due to Rogan's presence on them, Dana White's infrequent appearances, and so on. There are some mature, eloquent, interesting, funny and well-informed MMA media personalities and podcasters, such as Luke Thomas, Jordan Breen, Zane Simon, Jack Encarnacao, and so on, and these are serious people who should be listened to and promoted, as opposed to the basement s******ers like Rogan, Callen, and Schaub.

- Third Rogan-related point in a row, although he is only one-half of the whole here. It's sometimes hard to believe that it's 2015, the UFC is on Fox, we have WMMA, etc etc, and yet we are STILL relegated to having to put up with Goldie and Rogan's rank idiocy on every major broadcast. "It takes a lot of energy to be a rockstar"? Please, just fuck off and let the sport flourish with some professional commentary instead. Jon Anik and Brian Stann would be better, but to be honest, so would so many potential replacements. Any land mammal with a head would be better at his job than Goldie. Since the UFC moved to Fox, we've seen how many articulate and humorous personalities the UFC at their disposal - Cormier, Florian, Bisping, Rashad, Dominick Cruz, etc etc. And we seriously still have to listen to the deranged exclamations of Rogan and Goldberg every time?? It's madness. Absolute madness.

- This is a smaller gripe, but it's one that was identified at the time by Luke Thomas and some others, although I was surprised that there wasn't much made of it at the time. A truly fucking appalling manifestation of "bro" culture was the worldwide media tour they did for Aldo vs McGregor for UFC 189. This is a SPORT which contains ELITE athletes competing at the very highest level of that sport in the entire world, and you have the head of the organization standing in the middle of the stage, allowing drunken fans to get on the mike and call your organization's champion AND number 1 pound-for-pound fighter a "fucking pussy", a "bitch", a "scumbag", shouting at Aldo how he was going to die, going to be beheaded, going to shit himself, and on and on and on it went, while Dana White just laughed. Just laughed. Again, ask yourself, in WHAT OTHER SPORT would the top athletes, fighters who have earned their status by training and fighting at the highest level for many years, have to be subjected to torrents of personal abuse from any halfwit who happened to stagger up to a microphone? As if Floyd Mayweather and his promoters, or Wladimir Klitschko, or Manny Pacquiao, are going to accept people screaming at them how they're fucking pussies etc. The fact that the UFC allowed their athletes to be abused like this in public was shocking to me, truly shocking. This is the culture they have created, where the bro's all sit round laughing at how people abused their champions, how funny it was, and it is a sick culture for a sports organization, it really is.

- A last quick point about Dana White. The way he gets personal about fighters in the media, again he's just being a "bro", but the fact is, he shouldn't be a bro, he's the President of the organization. The latest one is Miesha Tate, who he is treating with the same disrespect as he has done so many before her. Is there really nothing to be said for having an actual professional as President? Someone who wouldn't allow themselves to get pissed off in public and start ranting and raving about individual fighters?


What a better sport it would be if the whole act was just cleaned right up - a professional President, a competent broadcast team, the fighters being treated and spoken of respectfully as the high-level athletes they are, no more making jokes about people on podcasts, no more idiotic hyperbole about how fighters are once-in-a-lifetime human beings, just a fresh, new start, and a more professional approach across the board.



This was way too long, apologies guys. Let the DIDN'T READ LOL's begin!! :)
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Didn't read lol

Just kidding. That was an excellent read. Can't really contribute with anything else, but kudos.
 
Huge focus on Rogan, when the biggest issue is Dana White.

I mean just compare their twitter feeds and you know who's most at fault here. And Rogan is a comedian first and foremost, White is not.
 
The main demographic will always be young males, its never going to be fully mainstream, foolish to think otherwise.
 
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