Is your interest in MMA growing or you losing interest?

[Bobby Boulders]

As long as there are options beyond the UFC shit show, I will always maintain the same level of interest.

 

[Wormwood]

Back in the day I watched every bout on a Pride card, every bout on a UFC card from the prelims to the main event, watched every Embedded and Countdown when they started those, watched all the pre fight press conferences, post fight press conferences, and the list goes on and on.., nowadays I pick and choose what I spend my time watching… but one thing has remained constant for decades… I still read Sherdog everyday.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

Gifs of finishes and KO/submission compilations are pretty much all I watch of the sport. I mostly blame Endeavor/TKO running UFC like Wal-Mart and commentary that makes me wish I was deaf.

 

[GrantB13]

I still enjoy good card. I know, great insight. But I'm finding myself more OK with the idea of skipping a card if there's literally only one fight I'm interested in which has been happening with increased frequency.

 

[Sonny Qc]

Downhill since the ranking system

 

[EndlessCritic]

Its awful compared to the pride/strikeforce/mid 2000s eras, Its over saturated, far too many cards. The apex is tragic. Too many signed fighters to the ufc, the level of ability and skill for most prelims and apex cards is tragic now. i watch more one/rizin/boxing/muay thai than ufc now.

The level and ability and skill for most prelims and apex cards now exceeds the quality of a great deal of fighters in Pride/Strikeforce in the mid 2000s.

Back in the day, the sport was easier to follow, because the number of elite fighters was relatively small. The "problem" with the modern sport of MMA is that there are so many elite fighters, and it's impossible to follow all of them.

 

[legcramp]

I only really tune in for big fights/stacked cards for get-togethers, don't really care about up and coming fighters, Dana's contender show, other org mma orgs.

 

[HHJ]

Enthusiasm will never be the same as it was when it was new to you. Thats just aging.


I still love it as much as im ever gonna love it 25 yrs later. Which is alot.

Which is enough.

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Ive been losing interest for a few years but only started skipping entire cards this year. Normally i would have a crappy card playing in the backround while i did other shit, and would watch a few fights, but the cards have been such shit this year, that i have no interest to watch even the main event.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

It's hard to deny that MMA has had some cool shit this year -- UFC 300 and other stuff. I don't buy the PPVs since they priced themselves out (imo) but I still enjoy watching MMA just as much now as I ever have. The regional circuits are still saturated with talent, but it's hard to keep up with so much MMA these days -- not a bad thing for me, but I can see arguments about oversaturation.

 

[RemyR]

Bout the same. Merab winning the belt along with Belal shook things up a bit and got me more interested.

Dana's stupid fucking ESPN+ requirement still has me viewing the events at bars or other means though. What an absolutely ridiculous idea, to have to jump through hurdles to be able to buy the product.

 

[ragreynolds]

Less interested. Feel like there's a few reasons for it. The first is definitely due to a lot of the top guys being way less active than they should be, and champs constantly chasing after double champ status rather than just fighting in their own division. I also think the whole rankings situation causes me to lose interest. The rankings are literally meaningless, and we consistently have undeserving guys fighting for the title while guys on impressive win streaks are overlooked. Another big issue to me is rematches, especially when champs are being given instant rematches after losing the belt. It feels like it's just holding up divisions, especially when most of these guys are barely fighting twice a year in the first place.

 

[ThePimblettEra]

Less interested.
Main reason being we don't have that many compelling fighters, for some reason.
The game feels less raw in general, don't know how to explain it fully.

I think most of us were spoilt by what I consider to be the golden era (A. Silva/GSP era and this period of time in general).

 

[jx820]

As I get older it's tougher to keep up with it. I'm still pretty obsessed with the sport itself, but the minutia I used to know I just don't anymore... I skip whole cards sometimes, and I can't keep track of all these generic wrestle/boxers.

If someone were to ask me to pick the UFC fighters from a list of 10 generically slaivic or eastern european sounding names I probably couldn't.

When I started watching there were 4 divisoins. On any given day I could tell you the top 15 guys in every division in pride or the UFC. I used to know every fighter on every card and I could tell you about their last few fights and what the stakes of that fight were. Now it's its a big event if I can identify 5 or 6 people on the main card without looking them up. And I'm too damned old to stay up till 2am to see the main event play out.

I still love it though. There is nothing like watching a really technical, fun, or gutsy fight. Every other sport pales in comparison for me.

 

[ToldYouSo]

The characters of Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, and Randy Couture are gone forever

 

[theincognito]

My overall interest is the same. My interest in shit no name cards is 0 and has always been 0. The only difference is those shit cards used to happen outside the UFC and now they happen in it.

 

[The Blue Bird]

What else am I going to watch

 

[Fox by the Sea]

i don't even differentiate between them much.
it converged so that most fights are the same, fighters are a revolving door of zero personality morons, no real stars, endless barrage of yelly hype that amounts to nothing.

 

[Koya]

Its a bland package, might have to do with that I'm a bit older now. Still young, but I started watching and training pretty early. The cardio sessions have mostly been replaced by gym sessions. I still like training. But watching it takes too much time, too awkward viewing windows as an European.

Package got a bit numbed down, I liked the Strikeforce/UFC days the most. Some healthy competition. Now it's just watered down slob. Good talent, it's just not as exciting to me.

Remember EliteXC ? Those were the good ol' days...

 

[Rationality]

I think I'd put it like this. Dana has built the UFC brand but diminished the individual personality side of the sport. The fighters just seem more and more interchangeable, even though many are very good, and that makes the fighters less interesting.