I used to discuss MMA on a MySpace forum a very long time ago. Someone there referred me to an invite-only MMA forum where people took the sport pretty seriously. I applied and was accepted based on my friend's recommendation. I posted there for a very long time, in fact I stole the model for my Sherdog Prediction Contests from them (and the current prediction site stole it from ME). The CEO of Crave contacted me for feedback on Sherdog's official prediction contest system back when that started up.
That forum had pretty strict rules on conduct and if you broke the rules you got one warning lifetime, and a second infraction had you banned forever. There was no shitposting, no flaming, and absolutely no fighter bashing. It was awesome. Plenty of people didn't like plenty of fighters, but had to express their feelings in a civil fashion. We didn't have members who kept whining and complaining about the same fighters as their entire identity.
That forum used to refer to Sherdog as the absolute worst place on the net to talk about MMA. People who were banned from there were usually sent here.
Eventually the guys who were hosting that site moved on to other things and that site closed. I went back to MySpace, and for shit and giggles, started an account here.
This place has always had some pretty bad people but turns out there are also some pretty great people, so I've been here a dozen years. I also have an account on the Underground but that site's pretty flat. I also had an account on BJ Penn but I was banned there for not hating GSP.
There aren't really a lot of good options for MMA fans. This place would be better if the rules mattered, but it's entirely revenue driven now and all that seems to matter is traffic. I guess that makes sense from a business perspective but as a fan I'm disappointed.