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- Dec 5, 2008
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Hmm. I thought that would be still the case in the States among people who don't watch it but know of it. Helwani sort of goes on as if it's being 'accepted' by the public so to speak and the whole ra-ra about getting into New York, was obviously about money and fights being held at MSG and just the principle of it being allowed there.
Folk over here I'd have talked to are put off by the blood and the '2 lads rolling around on the floor with one another' I think Soccer kicks are horrible to watch and I wouldn't want to see it in a fight, though they punch someone unconscious when they're on their back and both elements of that are something akin to a street fight, so I could see why people are put off by that. Though some of the nay-sayers go on as if the fighters are being poked with a cattle prod to go and fight.
Still a lot of barriers to get through and educating people on the ground game - which I didn't have a clue what was going on when I first started watching.
Yeah we get games covered by ESPN here and they have a channel that's a bit different to the States. I thought them going on FOX would be a lot bigger than it should have been - but the viewer numbers didn't seem that great on those cards overall. With the time difference here as well, it's hard staying up late for the fights/main events at 5:30am and it feels like there's too many cards - and it's not spread over a certain time frame - they seem to have 6 events in a row and then they take a 2 or 3 week break before the next block of fights.
Yeah, there's over 2 billion people in China and India alone and that would be the market they probably want to get more viewers from, and even the Japanese fighters and audience seems to have stagnated since PRIDE went. I think the fans over there are used to a certain way things are done in terms of production and fighters they know. Before you could bring back the old PRIDE alumni for cards in Japan, but they're all gone now more or less.
Wouldn't be a bad idea if the UFC started like a mini UFC in Japan for instance or buy out the local shows and put the best fighters on shows with something that has a PRIDE feeling to the show.
