How does UFC incentivize making it to fights healthy

[lakersfan45]

I feel terrible for fighters when they get injured, this is a brutal sport and getting injured in camp only to postpone and do all the training again must be absolutely grueling.

With that said a fighters main objective should be to enter the octagon without serious injury come fight time. For non champions the incentives are obvious, you want to work your way up you HAVE to fight. But for champions and top contenders you have a lot more to lose then gain. The risk/reward of risking injury and training harder is in favor of the champion. They get injured pull out and they come back either with the title or fighting interim champion. But I feel like it should be the opposite. If you are champion your main job should be defending the title on a regular basis and your most important objective should be to not get injured.

i admit I'm completely ignorant and haven't trained a day of any martial art in my life. So if I'm out of line here or wrong then go ahead and call me out on it. Am I wrong to assume a champion may be taking more risks during training in hopes to be better in the octagon? Or that champions are less likely to fight through injuries ?

All I know is the main quality of a champion should be fighting / defending somewhat regularly (at least until you completely run through a division and had a hell of a run like AS, gsp, aldo ect Then scale back your schedule u earned it )

So how can UFC incentivize not pulling out of big fights ? I want to reiterate I don't blame the fighters and completely understand that they are getting injured in the process to fight and defend. Can the UFC change the mindset to healthy first training second or is that not the problem ?

-Pinkflamer

 

[chitoortiz]

Get rid of the health insurance.

 

[raconnor]

if a few million dollars isn't enough incentive i don't know what else there could be

 

[lakersfan45]

if a few million dollars isn't enough incentive i don't know what else there could be

In a case like this the money will still be there when he comes back since he will still be champ and the logical match will be RDA vs mcgregor.

 

[Which Doctor]

As a known Nathan's lover, I'm pretty sure JDS would be down.

 

[TheWobbler]

if a few million dollars isn't enough incentive i don't know what else there could be

Didn't RDA say he was getting his standard contract rate for this fight on the MMA hour. Not sure if he has PPV points in his contract. If he doesn't and he took his normal rate his manager needs to be shot.

 

[Air Lats]

In a case like this the money will still be there when he comes back since he will still be champ and the logical match will be RDA vs mcgregor.

Not necessarily. Sometimes opportunity does not come knocking again. Shit happens.

I don't think the UFC can incentivize more than making a couple million dollars.

Guys probably need to train a little smarter - especially two weeks out from the fight. Who knows, though? I still don't know how RDA broke his foot.

 

[trunks]

I don't know. I think it's the psychology of the gyms. Most gyms are still training like cavemen. Injuries will always occur, but I think it's possible to train intelligently to minimize risk and still come into the fight in great shape. My guess is that most fighters are probably over-trained and that contributes to the injuries. But "over-training" is a bad word to professional athletes. Most of the S&C guys they hire are morons. A lot of time the S&C drills are more challenging and take more out of a fighter than sparring or drilling actual techniques. Even at Jackson's, where they seem to be more progressive with this stuff, I was watching that video of Condit's S&C session and winced through the whole thing. A bunch of shit that looks fancy and seems "cutting edge" that actually is probably making the fighter weaker in the long run.

 

[DetroitRob]

Simple. Strip them of the title when they pull out "hurt".

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

Don't cut fighters at the drop of a hat and don't throw fighters under the bus, also don't do shady shit like announcing fights before you offer them to the fighters. Fighters feel they are disposable if they don't preform well or will be thrown under the bus or generally just won't be treated well then they will not fight through injuries. What is the benefit of doing the UFC a favor if they will screw you over?

 

[Headkicktoleg]

Give a Health bonus that gets bigger and bigger with every fight not pulled out of.

Start at something like 2% of their contract and go up by 1% with consecutive fights not pulled out of.

Also I've said a few times. The UFC needs to start a research department that documents every injury in the UFC and how it happens. Then they can come up with best practices for decreasing those types of injuries

 

[Workaholic]

By only paying you if you fight

Oh they already do that and guys still train like absolute morons?