Guide to who is an actual casual

[TARTARA]

Spoken like a true casual.

I don't like those how they play-act like
"Heavy Duty OGs", Troll-eys & Hatters!

 

[Miguel de Sade]

This has been coming up a lot lately. I think we should put down some ground rules. Im going to break it down into 2 areas. Things that automatically make you a casual, and things that you need to check off to verify you are not a casual.

-Things that automatically make you a casual.

In my opinion if you check any of these boxes you are a casual.

You only care about one fighter and only watch events they are on like conor or Ronda or brock fans.

You aren't interested in EVERY title fight. Even the female title fights have a little allure to me now but as a whole no where near the mens divisions.

You can't name the champion of every mens division at all times, and who they took the title from. You should be able to trace the title for a while off the top of your head(interim champs and retiring throws this off a bit but you get the point)

You watch less than 100 fights per year (I dont care if live but maybe you get a bonus for that)


-Things that verify you are not a casual

You watch full events every time you have the opportunity.

You have or do train in combat sports regularly and dont check any of the casual boxes/have a perspective from multiple disciplines.

You know the base discipline of the vast majority of ufc fighters (I know we are getting to the point of fighters being baseless but I mean in general)

You care about other organizations outside the ufc.

-There's so many more I could add but I really want to see what others would add/remove. I always see time requirements and I disagree wholly if you became a fan a year ago and have watched 1000 fights since vs somebody who has been watching for 10 years and seen 500 how are you better.

Tell me what I missed or you think should qualify/disqualify you as a casual.

i don't know if you're a casual but you're certainly a fucking dork

 

[Nathan LaMontagne]

TUF 1 was when I first started watching MMA but more of a casual fan then. Started becoming more of a fan around GSPs rise to reclaim the title back from Serra. GSP vs Serra 2 (UFC 83) and thereafter was when I was going to the bar regularly with my brother and/or friends to catch the live PPVs. Started as an excuse to get drunk at first, but the vibe you get when a crowd of people erupt during a glorious battle, violent finish, or slick submission is really addicting, and a big part of why I kept up with the sport. Never been a big fan of other sports, but I imagine this is how a lot of people get into hockey, football, futbol, etc.

I'd say I became a "hardcore fan" (at least what I would consider to be hardcore) around 2010-2011. Around this time I started training kickboxing and BJJ, and started watching non-UFC events as well as UFC. Dynamite!! 2010 always sticks out to me as the tipping point where I became a "hardcore fan".

Now though, I watch much less. A lot of my friends nowadays don't watch MMA, and the few that do it's either they've moved away, or I've moved away. Stopped training since I moved away from my gym. Would watch with my brother, but his work hours are fucked. I was watching MMA more regularly again during the pandemic since there wasn't much else to do. But with things getting better, I find I'll really only watch events if I'm at home when they're on. If I'm doing anything else on those days, I'm happy to keep away from social media and watch the fights after the fact if they're worth watching. Sometimes I'll just catch highlights if there weren't many fights I was interested in. Didn't even bother watching TJ vs Sandhagen.

I think that's why I feel like I'm burning out a bit. My interest in a some of these inflated cards seems to be falling a bit. I really miss the era of 2-ish cards a month. Felt like it was very much quality over quantity, and every fight felt like it mattered. I can see why people like fights every week, but I always preferred the smaller promotions filling the gaps. Watching the smaller promotions gave a sense of seeing the prospects before their rise and get hype. UFC today feels like it's both major and minor league, which is super weird. Like if the NFL started bringing in college and high school teams into the league so they could have games all year rather than one season.

Sorry about this bloated answer, but I think it's way to reflect how I see fandom in MMA.

Causals = Fans that watch the big events only
Normal Fans = Fans that watch the UFC PPVs (or a handful of cards they like) regularly
Avid Fans = Fans that watch entire UFC cards + prelims regularly
Hardcore Fans = Fans that watch UFC and non-UFC cards regularly

Two final thoughts. There's nothing wrong with casual fans. Some people only have that time, or are only interested in the fights that matter to them and that's totally fine. Second, as much as people on here like to point the casual finger at people, if you're posting on MMA forums, you're not a casual.

Looking at your join date, you're an OG Fan. True A-Level Sherdogger. Curious if you had a similar arc to mine.

I apologize in advance for the length.

A not tiny bit of set up, around 97 or 98 I lived in Germany.

My stepdad's army buddy became kind of a surrogate father to me (I liked sports, and my stepdad was not the kind of father figure that would go out and play catch as well as my stepdad being stationed for nearly a year. Point being I'd go over there all the time)

Just some random day I go over, I must have brought up Ken shamrock (my friends at school had gotten me really into pro wrestling.)

Then he was like " you're a pretty mature kid and I think you can handle it, but probably don't tell your parents" and he popped in UFC 1 on VHS and went straight to Royce vs. Ken.

My small mind was very blown. Over the next couple months he showed me a bunch of other events, he was really knowledgeable about the ground game.
Eventually he was shipped back home (Nebraska) I bawled my eyes out.
Eventually moved back to California myself.

I kinda put MMA on the back burner due to no real access to watching it and eventually kinda forgot about it.

Eventually I did remember it and having internet helped. I was using Kazaa or something akin to that. Typed in probably Royce or something, and those old Sherdog highlights showed up. I then typed Sherdog into Kazaa and downloaded everything. Eventually led me to the site in late 2001.

You brought up a really good point, getting massively into it after training. That's what happened with me.

I wanted to train. I had some meet up with a long lost relative (biological father's brother as I found out my actual father died of what looked to be suicide)

At the barbecue my uncle disappeared with some friends into his place, I walk in and see them watching some fights and excitedly say "that's Bas Rutten!!!"
They'd gotten bored and watched some old pancrase fights.

I brought up that I wanted to train but in 01 there was literally nowhere to train.

He mentioned he goes to this Judo dojo thats a little hidden away. I was disappointed it wasn't Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

He gave me a stern, intense look and just said "trust me" though skeptical, I did.

Finally.
I started training around 11, nearly twelve in Judo. I went straight to the adult class regardless of my new instructor being a bit unsure (he had a teenager class)

(Another Tangent warning: At an incredibly ground focused Judo place. Regularly competed and won in BJJ tourneys for example. (Which Is the reason I still argue Judo CAN compete at the top level, if the training is superb and the focus is right)

Because of said training and being a teenager who's only focuses in life were MMA, girls and music. I watched anything and everything I could.

In 8th grade I think, I invited a ton of friends over to order UFC 40.

Pride ended up being my absolute favourite, I didn't care much for the UFC in comparison, though of course never missed anything. Ever. Not many people here realize MMA was every 2 or 3 months per event.

Got my hands on anything and everything to watch. VHS DVD, internet with slow internet.

I became honestly, the top student at the Gym and practically lived there I went so often. Competed way above my divisions (belt and age and weight) over time, In MMA I went 7-0 and eventually 2-0

I was all in.

The first drop in intensity of fandom happened after the buy out of Pride.

As silly as it sounds, My goal was eventually to fight there.

I actually talked to Lenne Hardt much later and asked her if I would have had a chance to make it to Pride. She said given my record (and look and demeanor)
She was pretty confident I would have gotten an offer. What a life that would have been.

I've never stopped watching since 01 but nothing compares to that time from 02 to maybe 09.

TL;DR

Spoiler

long boring back story about how I got introduced into MMA

How training amplified interest

The downfall of interest into a complete Casual

 

[First Day UFC Intern]

This has been coming up a lot lately. I think we should put down some ground rules. Im going to break it down into 2 areas. Things that automatically make you a casual, and things that you need to check off to verify you are not a casual.

-Things that automatically make you a casual.

In my opinion if you check any of these boxes you are a casual.

You only care about one fighter and only watch events they are on like conor or Ronda or brock fans.

You aren't interested in EVERY title fight. Even the female title fights have a little allure to me now but as a whole no where near the mens divisions.

You can't name the champion of every mens division at all times, and who they took the title from. You should be able to trace the title for a while off the top of your head(interim champs and retiring throws this off a bit but you get the point)

You watch less than 100 fights per year (I dont care if live but maybe you get a bonus for that)


-Things that verify you are not a casual

You watch full events every time you have the opportunity.

You have or do train in combat sports regularly and dont check any of the casual boxes/have a perspective from multiple disciplines.

You know the base discipline of the vast majority of ufc fighters (I know we are getting to the point of fighters being baseless but I mean in general)

You care about other organizations outside the ufc.

-There's so many more I could add but I really want to see what others would add/remove. I always see time requirements and I disagree wholly if you became a fan a year ago and have watched 1000 fights since vs somebody who has been watching for 10 years and seen 500 how are you better.

Tell me what I missed or you think should qualify/disqualify you as a casual.

We need more casual MMA fan to expand the sport influence and coverage over world population.

If you get maybe 100 of new casual fans for that one numbered UFC event, at least 1 to 5 of them later will be the new MMA enthusiasts in the future.

 

[TheAmericanGazelle]

It's really weird how many people here care about "casual" vs. "hardcore" categories of fandom.

Either you know what you are talking about or you don't. Either you have a sense of history or you don't. Either you have done some martial arts yourself or you haven't.

There are plenty of people a year or two into MMA that could put so-called "I was a fan since UFC 1" crowd to shame in that sense.

 

[tuckermaclain]

You have a join date of 2019. Don’t tell me I’m a fucking casual. Conor fighting Khabib was before your time.

 

[First Day UFC Intern]

Either you know what you are talking about or you don't. Either you have a sense of history or you don't. Either you have done some martial arts yourself or you haven't.

There are many fighters who don't really watch fights that much. Only interested in competing

 

[TheAmericanGazelle]

There are many fighters who don't really watch fights that much. Only interested in competing

That's sort of my point.

Anyone who knows anything about sports knows tons of former players are complete ass at analysis, and some people who are great at analysis didn't even play professionally (and some who are good/bad at both).

You can be a fan for twenty years and have zero intellectual curiosity or be a fan for one year and have tons. You could be super serious about martial arts and simply have other life responsibilities that don't allow you to watch every ACA event at 3 in the morning.

But quality is quality and good is good, regardless of tenure even if you think there is a correlation of sorts...it definitely ain't a perfect one. Plenty of hardcore dummies and casual fans who approach things seriously, etc.

It's sort of like the old anecdote about a hiring manager asking a potential employee if he really has ten years of sales experience or one year of sales experience repeated ten times over.

 

[MigitAs]

 

[Muaythaibrit]

People who care about people being casuals need more vitamin d

 

[knock_you_out]

Wasn't the definition of a casual, anyone who started watching UFC after Griffin vs Bonnar 1?

 

[Derousey]

casual checking in. I give 0 fucks about any aspect of mma these days but I might tune in if bored enough.