I wish the UFC went back to less fighters, less cards, more competition

I don’t mind free cards that are watered down. I can’t get behind these anemic PPV cards though. I don’t know how most of these are getting any buys these days

I do miss the excitement of the stacked cards that happened once every month or two. That’s more like twice a year now when I’m excited for a card and not just a specific fight
 
I've always thought it would be a good idea to make a minor/feeder league. Something like DWCS but larger and more structured.
That way they could have weekly cards that give new talent exposure as they fight their way through the ranks to earn a spot in the UFC. Without a veteran fighter stealing the main event.

The the UFC itself would have a major card about once a month stacked with more big names/big talent. This would create a bigger differentiation between PPVs and fight nights. I think it would also make match making better/more exciting as fighters will have really had to earn their spot.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
The UFC roster currently has a whopping 1128 fighters on it.

https://www.ufc.com/athletes/all

It’s been bloated to level never seen before.

A lot of these guys should be fighting in regional shows or in other promotions. The UFC is supposed to be the major leagues of MMA.

Im going to show you a few free UFC fight nights from a few years ago.

UFC fight night 79:

Ben Henderson vs. Jorge Masvidal
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Dominic Waters
Sexyama vs. Alberto Mina

UFC Fight Night 80

Thug Rose Vs. Paige Vanzant
Jim Miller vs. Michael Chiesa
Sage Northcutt vs. Cody Pfister
Thiago Santos vs. Martin Day.

These were FREE cards.

My point being the roster is bloated, there are too many cards and the talent is being watered down.

They need to really cut this down to 12 PPV events and 12 fight nights a year. 24 High quality cards with the best fighters in the world fighting each other.
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WRONG!!! [insert donald trump gif here]
 
Post 2 Decision said:
If you really did watch Fight Nights, you'd know who they are, because you'd have seen them before.
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Absolutely not. There are less than 200 people in my company that see daily and I cant always remember who is who.

You'd have to be a savant about names and faces to remember 1100 fighters even if you'd seen them before. When they have the #87 LW vs the #92 LW none of us know who the hell they are.
 
jx820 said:
Absolutely not. There are less than 200 people in my company that see daily and I cant always remember who is who.

You'd have to be a savant about names and faces to remember 1100 fighters even if you'd seen them before. When they have the #87 LW vs the #92 LW none of us know who the hell they are.
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There aren't 1100 fighters, that's wrong.

600+ is still a lot to remember, although I'm sad enough to know all of them.
 
Hellowhosthat said:
There aren't 1100 fighters, that's wrong.

600+ is still a lot to remember, although I'm sad enough to know all of them.
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Yeah, UFC's website lists 1,128 athletes but under scrutiny I found guys who have left the org so that count isnt accurate.

Still 600+ is way more than I can remember.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
The UFC roster currently has a whopping 1128 fighters on it.

https://www.ufc.com/athletes/all

It’s been bloated to level never seen before.

A lot of these guys should be fighting in regional shows or in other promotions. The UFC is supposed to be the major leagues of MMA.

Im going to show you a few free UFC fight nights from a few years ago.

UFC fight night 79:

Ben Henderson vs. Jorge Masvidal
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Dominic Waters
Sexyama vs. Alberto Mina

UFC Fight Night 80

Thug Rose Vs. Paige Vanzant
Jim Miller vs. Michael Chiesa
Sage Northcutt vs. Cody Pfister
Thiago Santos vs. Martin Day.

These were FREE cards.

My point being the roster is bloated, there are too many cards and the talent is being watered down.

They need to really cut this down to 12 PPV events and 12 fight nights a year. 24 High quality cards with the best fighters in the world fighting each other.
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They cannot do that (cut the cards down that far) as they have a contractual agreement with ESPN to show far more events than that each calendar year.

Other reasons too, but that's a big one.
 
IMO if you're not ranked top 10 in your weight class, we shouldn't have to pay to watch you fight (maybe top 15). Save the lower tier and up and coming fighters of the UFC for Fight Night cards and PPV prelims, and pack the PPV's with nothing but top-tier fighters. Sick of seeing random fighters with killer Twitter/Insta followings fighting cans and/or fighters with fake beefs on PPV's.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
The UFC roster currently has a whopping 1128 fighters on it.

https://www.ufc.com/athletes/all

It’s been bloated to level never seen before.

A lot of these guys should be fighting in regional shows or in other promotions. The UFC is supposed to be the major leagues of MMA.

Im going to show you a few free UFC fight nights from a few years ago.

UFC fight night 79:

Ben Henderson vs. Jorge Masvidal
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Dominic Waters
Sexyama vs. Alberto Mina

UFC Fight Night 80

Thug Rose Vs. Paige Vanzant
Jim Miller vs. Michael Chiesa
Sage Northcutt vs. Cody Pfister
Thiago Santos vs. Martin Day.

These were FREE cards.

My point being the roster is bloated, there are too many cards and the talent is being watered down.

They need to really cut this down to 12 PPV events and 12 fight nights a year. 24 High quality cards with the best fighters in the world fighting each other.
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Well wish in one hand and :eek::eek::eek::eek: in the other hand, see which hand is heavier when you are done…
 
I watch virtually every card and STILL am constantly bombarded by nobodies and fighters I've never hear of before (or forgot about amongst the literal 1,000+ other fighters on the roster). Over-saturation is a very real phenomenon, and it's OK that there are people preferred when the sport was easier and more fulfilling to follow.

Just a thought: but does a band being "bigger than ever" necessarily make it better for the old/original fan? Absolutely not. What about a band releasing WAY MORE sub-par albums more frequently instead of spaced-out high quality albums?
 
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Patman said:
The UFC is able to do this because of low Fighter pay. They make more money putting on a shit card than the cost to operate it.
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especially at the UFC Apex : there's NO fee to pay to the owners of a stadium or sports arena as they OWN the APEX.

The UFC will never have a lower event production-cost than the events that they put on at the Apex (Which is still MOST of them). This very low production cost goes a very long way to offsetting the "no gate revenue" issue. This is KEY to Dana White meeting his financial targets set for him annually by WME-IMG.

Title fights, and PPV will always be at a big arena as the gate revenue is used to pay the bigger-name fighters and the stadium fees etc etc. Like this weekend's PPV event : held at T-mobile stadium.
 
el feo said:
Serious question - does anyone really enjoy having 12+ fights on a card? They could easily do 9 or 10 fights and trim some fat off the roster

EDIT- the next fight night has 15 scraps listed on the card including 2 match-ups with an “unknown fighter”
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They need bigger cards these days as a higher percentage of fights fall through due to COVID issues and also a few due to "could not get visa for USA-entry" issues etc. So they assume some fights might fall through so they book more fights to compensate.
 
Oversaturation of events is definitely a problem. The UFC ability to promote fights gets spread pretty thin with such a massive roster and events almost every week. And they hurt their brand by having so many fighters/events. Honestly didn't even know who Ryan Spann was until I saw the fight, then realized I had actually seen him fight a handful of times. Just way too many fighters to try and follow.

The UFC is both major and minor league at the same time, with way too much bleeding in between. Imagine if the NFL started signing NCAA and high school teams so they could have more events. That's what it feels like sometimes.

If the aim for the UFC/WME is to make and build stars, they would a lot better with less fighters to invest more time in than spreading themselves so thin.

UFC twice a month and smaller promotions in between (like it was from 2012-2016) was the best IMO. I understand ESPN has a quota so it won't change but maybe, just maybe one day everyone will see the light and thing will change back.
 
jx820 said:
Absolutely not. There are less than 200 people in my company that see daily and I cant always remember who is who.

You'd have to be a savant about names and faces to remember 1100 fighters even if you'd seen them before. When they have the #87 LW vs the #92 LW none of us know who the hell they are.
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Yeah, that's an odd argument. The NFL has almost 1700 players, and the average fan (call them a "casual" if you will) probably can't name more than a dozen - a few quarterbacks, a few receivers, and a few running backs. I bet most people can't name all 53 players on their own home team, and might not even be able to name the starting 22.

Every sport requires a casual perspective unless it's literally your job to follow it. That's just the nature of sports, and not something that's inherently bad.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
The UFC roster currently has a whopping 1128 fighters on it.

https://www.ufc.com/athletes/all

It’s been bloated to level never seen before.

A lot of these guys should be fighting in regional shows or in other promotions. The UFC is supposed to be the major leagues of MMA.

Im going to show you a few free UFC fight nights from a few years ago.

UFC fight night 79:

Ben Henderson vs. Jorge Masvidal
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Dominic Waters
Sexyama vs. Alberto Mina

UFC Fight Night 80

Thug Rose Vs. Paige Vanzant
Jim Miller vs. Michael Chiesa
Sage Northcutt vs. Cody Pfister
Thiago Santos vs. Martin Day.

These were FREE cards.

My point being the roster is bloated, there are too many cards and the talent is being watered down.

They need to really cut this down to 12 PPV events and 12 fight nights a year. 24 High quality cards with the best fighters in the world fighting each other.
Click to expand...
this is some serious Jerry McGuire shit.
hate to break it to you but it isn't happening unless you can convince the shareholders to be ok with losing money.
 
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