Anyone feel like the UFC is losing its legitimacy?A

That's the way college football has been run forever, except when they went to an obscure system no one really understood which used complex calculations to always choose the teams with the highest TV ratings. Now they use polling and a committee to decide who gets to the championship playoffs.

I am not defending the current UFC system. I loathe the idea of Cain getting a shot before Arlovski. I think a better defined system might be a big improvement.

However, having a well-defined championship system is not at all fundamental to the definition of a sport.

To be honest, as bad as I think Zuffa is sometimes, they are angels compared to NCAA. Those guys take advantage of young athletes like no other league.

But yes I agree to an extent, match making system alone doesn't make a sport illegitimate. The actual rules and enforcement of them is important too, especially if it's a sport that involves judging. However I think mma fails at this point too.

In hockey, you may not have every penalty called on you, but they will get called. In mma, a guy like jones can poke eyes and never get a penalty because he is needle mover. Just warnings. A guy like palhares can gouge eyes and not get a penalty.

And then there is the judging criteria. It's archaic and has not changed at all. We're still using a system from another sport that doesn't fit mma at all.

This is where I have trouble with it. Mma fighters however are as legit athletes as they come.
 
To be honest, as bad as I think Zuffa is sometimes, they are angels compared to NCAA. Those guys take advantage of young athletes like no other league.

But yes I agree to an extent, match making system alone doesn't make a sport illegitimate. The actual rules and enforcement of them is important too, especially if it's a sport that involves judging. However I think mma fails at this point too.

In hockey, you may not have every penalty called on you, but they will get called. In mma, a guy like jones can poke eyes and never get a penalty because he is needle mover. Just warnings. A guy like palhares can gouge eyes and not get a penalty.

And then there is the judging criteria. It's archaic and has not changed at all. We're still using a system from another sport that doesn't fit mma at all.

This is where I have trouble with it. Mma fighters however are as legit athletes as they come.

1. Palhares did not get away with gouging eyes.
2. I don't think Jones gets away with eye poke solely because he is a needle mover. Guys like Gus get away with it too, and there isn't much reason to believe he is a big draw. Either way, penalties being called differently based on star power is a characteristic of the NBA as well.
3. I don't have a huge problem with the 10 point must system for MMA, although it is not utilized in the best possible manner. The problem with the judging is for the most part the judges, for which the blame falls on the various state governments.

People have a litany of complaints against the UFC, many of which I wholeheartedly agree with. But very little of it affects the core; legitimacy of what they do. Only steroids, which they are cracking down on and fixed fights really change the nature of what is happening in the Octagon.

If the sport is fighting, if the fights are real, then the sport is legit. The fight promotion may leave plenty to be desired in many other facets of how they run the sport, but that goes to competence, not legitimacy.
 
To be honest, as bad as I think Zuffa is sometimes, they are angels compared to NCAA. Those guys take advantage of young athletes like no other league.

But yes I agree to an extent, match making system alone doesn't make a sport illegitimate. The actual rules and enforcement of them is important too, especially if it's a sport that involves judging. However I think mma fails at this point too.

In hockey, you may not have every penalty called on you, but they will get called. In mma, a guy like jones can poke eyes and never get a penalty because he is needle mover. Just warnings. A guy like palhares can gouge eyes and not get a penalty.

And then there is the judging criteria. It's archaic and has not changed at all. We're still using a system from another sport that doesn't fit mma at all.

This is where I have trouble with it. Mma fighters however are as legit athletes as they come.

Lol at comparing Jones to Palhares.

Not comparable at all.
 
Any company that manages to get two PPV's with 800k+ buys in a month is pretty legitimate.
 
I just heard that The Ufc played Anderson NSAC hearing on fight pass.
Soo, yeah.
 
...why is this canner mcmario a saying i see here all the time..... u really think he's a can?

dude you're quoting is a troll. Never seen one worthwhile post from him/her. The proverbial "faux malcontent".

On topic, it's never really had any legitimacy outside of the fighters' skills. The rest has been squeeze every nickel out of it you can by any means necessary. Dana's a schoolyard bully personality and he's president....how much fucking legitimacy can they have??? it's a circus that sometimes showcases serious skills, period.
 
BTW Bellator tried to give title shots strictly based on who was the most worthy challenger and people didn't even tune in.

Contrary to what posters like ts believe mma is not like team sports. Hype and buzz matter more than who is most worthy.

No ones going to care in two years that Bader didn't get a title shot or that Condit wasn't forced to win one more fight for his title shot
If the NFL had the Dallas Cowboys automatically advance to the Super Bowl, their ratings would triple.

Doesn't make it the right thing to do.
 
I like watching MMA. The UFC puts on lots of fights that I enjoy. For me, that's the bottom line. All of the other stuff is just that. Other stuff.

Take this Werdum/Velasquez rematch. Is that the fight I would have made? No. I would have went with JDS, Arlovski, or Miocic. But at the end of the day, even though it wasn't one of my top choices, it is still a fight I will likely enjoy. I'm looking forward to JDS/Overeem, Arlovski/Mir, and Miocic/Rothwell. Again, it might not be how I would do it, but at the end of the day, it is still 4 fights that I am looking forward to.
 
1. Palhares did not get away with gouging eyes.
2. I don't think Jones gets away with eye poke solely because he is a needle mover. Guys like Gus get away with it too, and there isn't much reason to believe he is a big draw. Either way, penalties being called differently based on star power is a characteristic of the NBA as well.
3. I don't have a huge problem with the 10 point must system for MMA, although it is not utilized in the best possible manner. The problem with the judging is for the most part the judges, for which the blame falls on the various state governments.

People have a litany of complaints against the UFC, many of which I wholeheartedly agree with. But very little of it affects the core; legitimacy of what they do. Only steroids, which they are cracking down on and fixed fights really change the nature of what is happening in the Octagon.

If the sport is fighting, if the fights are real, then the sport is legit. The fight promotion may leave plenty to be desired in many other facets of how they run the sport, but that goes to competence, not legitimacy.

1. The ref was ignoring the gouges and just issuing warnings. In an actual sport, a penalty would be applied immediately.

2. I don't know what the reason is for not calling pokes for Gus/jones, Needle moving was a guess but your guess is as good as mine. the point is they are able to "accidently" break the rules of the competition without incurring a penalty over and over again. And while NBA seems like a good example to prove popular athletes get a pass on penalties, they still call them. Mma fighters rarely get penalties, they get warnings. It's not the same and it's the difference between a real organized sports league and sports entertainment. One enforces rules, the other one has them as kind of a decoration and enforces them very, very rarely.

3. It's a terrible system for mma. There's too many variables compared to boxing, that you can't just copy and paste the judging system from one sport into another. The sport needs a concrete scoring system of its own that doesn't have this many inconsistencies.

Fights are real, athletes are real but there's too many things missing to make it a real sports league. It's sports entertainment still.

Lol at comparing Jones to Palhares.

Not comparable at all.

I don't recall where I said they are the same thing. One is a poke the other was a straight up eye gauge. They are comparable in the sense that judges will issue warnings but not apply a penalty even though one is taking place. If you saw that as me implying one fighter is equally dirty as the other, the point flew over your head I'm afraid man.
 
All your arguments are based on the Ufc needing to be legitimate when it doesn't.

In fact it seems to make more money on fighters like Chael, Connor n Rousey.
 
Legitimacy is always an issue. Recently I think they've been erring on the side of show business but it hasn't been world ending.
 
If you like watching combat sports then you should only be worrying about the fights they are putting together. Who really cares about the UFC in general. It's always about the fights. And, they put out great high level fights.
 
It's been bad in the past few years:

- Chael talking his way to multiple title fights
- UFC cutting top 10 fighters because they are "boring"
- Very good fighters signing with other orgs due to the Reebok deal
- Uninspired matchmaking and rematches
- Ronda hype machine and lack of opposition
- UFC decision not to pay non-champs enough to allow them to train and fight full-time
- Guys working full-time in entry-level jobs while being UFC fighters
- UFC fighters getting murked in street fights
- Trash talk becoming more important than fighting chops
- Steroids
- TRT
- Dana being Dana
- Oversaturation of product / terrible TUF fighters
- Delusions of grandeur (Cowboys stadium talk, soccer stadiums, world fucking domination)

Pretty good list.
Very sad thing.
 
Fights are real, athletes are real but there's too many things missing to make it a real sports league. It's sports entertainment still.

The term sports entertainment was invented in pro wrestling so they can avoid being regulated by ACs. Part of the very definition of the term is that the competition is not real.

If the fights are real, then the sport is real. The UFC is a legitimate sporting promotion. The way it is run may leave plenty to be desired, but unless Wanderlei comes through with his bombshell evidence of fixed fights, there is no cogent argument that it is illegitimate.
 
Time to give you goys a history lesson:

- Without Zuffa the UFC would of been DEAD
- Dana White single-handedly saved the UFC and also the sport of MMA
- The UFC brings the best athletes from all the countries from the world
- Dana White has every time compensated the fighters more than fairly with even locker room bonuses
- The new Reebok™ Fight Kit is the most lucrative business venture EVER compared to any other sport

So you goofballs better be grateful Dana White is still working for the UFC because he can do whatever he wants. Did I mention he is worth 300 Million Dollars?
 
The UFC has never been "legit"
I put the UFC in the same vein as WWE but with real fighting.
Hell MMA and pro wrestling are close than most fans would think.

Fighting is ......fighting
Not a sport...
 
Back
Top