Higher quality cards or frequent cards? Which do you prefer?

[tequilaboy]

High quality please

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Every sport, there is a "Championship". Some sport even had 4 (golf and tennis). The UFC should have a 'Finale" card, stacked from top to bottom held at the end of the year. Call it the Champion of the Year or whatever you want to call it. This card is designed to blow up all other cards in terms of sheer numbers. Just like the SuperBowl, Stanley Cup finals, or Masters. I don't need to see a card a week featuring a bunch of no names fighters. Anderson/Blachowicz fight last weekend? Headlining? Please. That should be on the PreLims.

It is interesting the way the sport has become so calendar-less. You know damn well if there was a Grand Prix to crown the champion every December every single contender would easily make it to the building that night, available and on weight. But MMA quickly became like boxing. Imagine if someone had to waste six months convincing Roger Federer to play Novak Djokovic.

The company is very aware of this too and is making a conscious effort to get these guys to take (and show up for) fights more regularly.

 

[josephsjoseph]

I prefer the ufc to have a b league put about 80% of the roster per division into that league if not more. That's the fights they air all the time. building up talent , creating stories ect for them to finally reach the ufc. and at that point it would actually be the best of the best. cards would only have top ten talent. shows would be bigger and more special.

 

[g*r*b]

I'm not that fussed about "quality" given that low level matches can often be bangers and high level matches can easily turn into stalemates. I wouldn't mind the frequency dialed down a bit...say, one event every two weeks. But that has more to do with the need to do work around the house without the siren call of the cage distracting me.

 

[juanM3]

I would not mind the frequency of cards if each were shorter. Instead of 13-14 fights, cap it at 8 fights.

Sporting events average three hours. No reason a MMA event should be 6-7 hours.

Definitely that. It would allow them to keep the frequency and with a slight bump in quality.

I don't watch entire events anymore. It's too long and there are almost always several fights with no-names I don't care about.

And the commentators would probably like that. You wouldn't hear someone like Anik complain about that, but I bet he'd be happy if it was shortened.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

How would everybody feel about a sort of compromise between the two? Make Fight Night cards focus more on lesser names and perhaps bring the quality down a little bit more in order to save most of the quality fights for stacked pay per views?

The question (which I don’t know the answer to) is how bad a main event (and card generally) has to be before it becomes untenable in terms of ticket sales and/or their relationship with ESPN.

Take this upcoming NZ card for example. Hooker vs Felder is a great fight stylistically and carries some nice divisional ramifications, with the winner being right in the mix for a title eliminator with someone like Gaethje or Poirier I would think. It also has a great local connection.

Take away that fight, though, and this card is a complete afterthought, at best. I’m not even sure I would bother to check the results. And ideally that’s what we would do — move fights like Hooker-Felder and Lee-Oliveira onto the 4th or 5th slot on a PPV.

So I suspect that they’re stretched pretty thin and have already thinned these non-PPV cards out about as much as they can. In principle I agree with the suggestion though.

 

[KawhiDoh]

Quality over quantity.

 

[El Fernas]

I dont mind if the card isnt stacked, 2-3 good fights per card im ok with, this is a MUST for a PPV.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

I think ideally, my level of fandom would prefer every three weeks alternating ppv and free card

however I assume they already did the math and a thin card every week with a few stacked cards is making them more money

Agree. I think it’s largely tied to ESPN as well. They’re making a push towards getting everyone to buy—and keep—their subscription service. “Keep” being the key word.

 

[VulcanNervPinch]

Quality, no question

 

[Pepy]

they should have kept the Strikeforce brand and remade it into some kind of a B-league

I prefer my UFC events loaded. Nowadays I often gotta dig through like 3 events to find maybe 5-6 solid fights that I want to see