How come the UFC doesn’t get young phenoms like AJ McKee?

[herra]

I think top to bottom the UFC has better fighters but in terms of YOUNG potential phenoms with pedigree Dana white is slipping .

imagine those guys (Aaron Pico,Aj McKee) in the UFC? Like shit who’s the best prospect they even have? Chimaev? Like come on.

Is this a dig at Islam Machachev?

 

[Patman]

Jiri’s not exciting enough of a product for y’all?

 

[Fesaine]

Arman tsarukyan, Topuria, Arnold Allen, Evloev, Umar Nurmagomedov, Shavkat, Chimaev, Jack Shore, and many others.

Did TS even bother to do some basic research first before making this thread?

 

[15089371]

They will get AJ for sure if he beats Patricio. They will also get Patricio, but like with Chandler I feel like they want to old enough to the point where they'll probably won't become champ in the ufc anymore. I have no doubt both will be in the UFC in 2022.

 

[welcometohavoc]

I think top to bottom the UFC has better fighters but in terms of YOUNG potential phenoms with pedigree Dana white is slipping .

imagine those guys (Aaron Pico,Aj McKee) in the UFC? Like shit who’s the best prospect they even have? Chimaev? Like come on.

They do but UFC actually has competition so they either sink or swim alot faster

 

[Eric Silva 2.0]

Dana White's Stand and Bang Contender Series is the biggest disgrace to the concept of finding talent.

Someone should tell Dana this is MMA and people who love the sport want to see complete mixed martial artists or better yet just the best mixed martial artists no matter how they fight. That's why i'm tuning in to see Pitbull fight tonight.

 

[Askafan]

If you play the prediction game on tapology you'd know it's a lot easier to get a good score on Bellator than on UFC - even when you don't know the fighters. ......... just pick the favourites because so many of the scraps are foregone conclusions.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Someone should tell Dana this is MMA and people who love the sport want to see complete mixed martial artists or better yet just the best mixed martial artists no matter how they fight. That's why i'm tuning in to see Pitbull fight tonight.

They do the right thing when it comes to guys like Danny Sabatello,people like that would be highly detrimental to ratings.

 

[HHJ]

Jiri’s not exciting enough of a product for y’all?

Jirimania is a precious commodity that only comes along once every 400 yrs.

 

[HHJ]

Someone should tell Dana this is MMA and people who love the sport want to see complete mixed martial artists or better yet just the best mixed martial artists no matter how they fight. That's why i'm tuning in to see Pitbull fight tonight.

Not everyone agrees with this.

 

[BobsyaUncle]

so if bellator pays more why are there been fighters who make 5k or less.

The myth that Bellator pay better because they occasionally over pay for a veteran that UFC no longer want gets parroted a lot on here.

 

[Vespasian70AD]

Khamzat Chimaev

Khazmat Chimaev

Learn the difference

Khazmat wouldn’t have gotten derailed by Covid.

 

[SokoudjouFanboy]

They will get AJ for sure if he beats Patricio. They will also get Patricio, but like with Chandler I feel like they want to old enough to the point where they'll probably won't become champ in the ufc anymore. I have no doubt both will be in the UFC in 2022.

You seem to have no idea how MMA contracts work

 

[SokoudjouFanboy]

Bellator signs fighters earlier in their career because they realize if all else is equal and they have 10+ fights they will sign with the UFC. This has been Coker's strategy going back to the Strikeforce days. Tyron Woodley, Luke Rockhold, DC etc. AJ has been fighting pretty good competition since his 9th/10th fight, the fact he's gone undefeated this long shouldn't be downplayed like people are doing in this thread because "lol bellator".

 

[Eric Silva 2.0]

Bellator offers him more money.


That’s one thing I think they do better than the UFC, they pay their fighters more and let them have sponsors. Which is funny because the UFC is infinitely more wealthy than BMMA but refuses to pay people or let them have sponsors.

They do the right thing when it comes to guys like Danny Sabatello,people like that would be highly detrimental to ratings.

It seems like they're going out of their way to find stand up fighters only. I think it's a mistake. I like seeing the best fighters, no matter what the style (leave out a guy like Elias Theodorou). People on here used to give Usman the business for being boring, Colby too. Both have evolved. Is Colby the most exciting fighter? No, but the fight with Usman was a classic and the next one will be huge.

 

[Ballsaque]

They had Erick Silva when he was like basically a fetus.

Isn't he still a teenager

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

No they haven’t.

Look how many of those contender series guys that under 25.

We just aren’t talking about them because they haven’t reached the title yet. In time more legends will emerge and when we look back we’ll see they were signed young.


EXAMPLES; Note that these are their current ages all of these guys were signed even younger

Jimmy Crute Age 24
Edmen Shahbazyan Age 22
Song Yadong Age 22
Brenden Allen Age 24
Maycce Barber AGe 23
Arman Tsarukyan Age 24
Sabina Mazo Age 23
Umar Nurmagemodov Age 23
Mirnada Maverick Age 23
Kay Hansen Age 21
llia Toupuria Age 23
Cory Mckeena Age 21

This post is confusing because most of these fighters weren't on contender series, but were signed directly, which is what the UFC does for the prospects they actually deem to be talented...

 

[SokoudjouFanboy]

It seems like they're going out of their way to find stand up fighters only. I think it's a mistake. I like seeing the best fighters, no matter what the style (leave out a guy like Elias Theodorou). People on here used to give Usman the business for being boring, Colby too. Both have evolved. Is Colby the most exciting fighter? No, but the fight with Usman was a classic and the next one will be huge.

This is 100% true. It leads to guys not getting properly tested on the way up IMO. You can argue that other promotions test their fighters even worse and you'd have something there due to less depth on the roster but the fact remains that the UFC doesn't like to sign guys who are top grapple heavy, "boring" fighters.It's also part of the reason why other promotions are less exciting like Bellator. They employ more fighters that are good but boring because they kind of have to in order to have good fighters.

The UFC is where the best fight the best as long as they can fit you into their quota based on where you live and you have a fan friendly style. Oh and now a days you have to win a tryout fight where getting a contract is entirely at 1 guy's discretion. If you don't fit into that confine, happen to be from Russia or shoot for a takedown at the end of a contender series fight? Sorry, you can never be the best.

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

You seem to have no idea how MMA contracts work

I mean, he will have to fulfill his contract but the belief is that eventually he will make his way over to the UFC.

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

The UFC is more of a sink or swim league. You won't get fighters up to 17-0 IN the UFC. They may get that on the regional scene BEFORE the UFC, but not in the UFC itself. And there's nothing wrong with Bellator's model of developing prospects from fight 1, it's just a different strategy, many fighters were picked up by strikeforce/bellator and started from earlier in their careers and went on to be great UFC fighters even champions.

You have to remember that the numbers as far as records go really do not matter. The UFC will sign guys at 5-0, and sign guys at 25-0, those guys aren't necessarily differently able or differently talented, one has just had less record amelioration. The 0 also really doesn't matter that much, particularly if someone lost a fight early in their career because they got caught by something when they were new to the sport. Someone like Khusein Askhabov, I'm a big fan of him actually, but it's not meaningful to pretend he's better than say Cory Sandhagen because Sandhagen has the 14-3 and Khusein is 23-0. In the case of AJ McKee, he has a lot of wins over solid regional guys, guys who are probably UFC entry level, guys akin to contender series winners or the regional guys who get signed for local cards, maybe even some fading seasoned vets. How many guys has he beaten who are say top 20 in the division in the world? Maybe one, Caldwell but maybe not even because Caldwell is typically 135. So if you compare him to a guy like Ilia Topuria, he has 6 more wins, I'd say their records are about equally impressive.