Losing interest in current UFC, after 12 years following MMA

[markg171]

There's a lot of people in this thread saying the sport is still great because certain fights/cards have recently turned out great. That's looking at things in hindsight though.

Like a lot of people in this thread are saying MMA's super exciting because Jiri/Glover turned out to be a great fight. That completely tries to re-write history when before the fight happened nobody was really excited about it as they thought it was a gimme fight for Jiri. That expectations turned out to be wrong and exceeded is besides the point. The issue was people didn't like the fight in the first place, not liked it after the fact. Of course you liked something that TURNED OUT to be great.

A lot of MMA is less exciting nowadays because most of the matchups aren't designed with "fun" in mind. Of course you'll be less enthusiastic about fights that cater to seeing who wins and advances rather than when it's a case of it being a fun fight that ALSO does that same purpose. You get the occasional one like Khamzat/Burns, but most of the fights aren't designed like this.

Much of this is the fighter's faults though, not the UFC's. The fighters are much more risk averse now, whether that's fighting more conservatively or only taking certain fights, and also they fight less frequently. These factors mean the UFC needs to be more careful with cultivating their talent as we're talking about setting fighters back years when they lose if they're only fighting 1-2x per year. So of course you see less randomly fun matchups. They can't make them like they used to. You're not going to see a Chuck/Wand type of fight where the UFC made it solely for the fans entertainment as they knew that was a matchup people had wanted for years.

That and there's like a billion fighters on the roster now. Of course you don't care about fighters you've never heard before. It used to be very easy for new fighters to come in and appear on the prelims and quickly move up. You didn't need to follow an entire card to learn about fighters. Now there's entire groups of fighters that are just prelim fighters. If you skip much of the prelims like many do you'll never learn who these people are unless they do something bonkers.

Given all of the above, I'm not surprised many people take a look at an upcoming card and think to themselves that they'll just skip it if they've got something better to do, and will take a look at the highlights/gifs/results later on. If that.

 

[GrantB13]

If people only want to watch one card a month btw there's nothing from stopping you doing that.

I don't think the problem is the number of events in reality. I think the problem is there are too many fighters and they don't fight often enough. If we could watch champs defend 3 times a year or watch your favorite fighter more than once every 18 months that would fix a lot of that feeling. Maybe.

 

[par6597]

I look forward to maybe 3-4 cards a year anymore

 

[Askafan]

Seems pretty normal to me, I'm more surprised by the 20 year vets who've maintained their interest for so long.

 

[Arrrrgh]

Not even close.

There were some good events, but don’t stand up to anything the UFC or Pride were doing in their heyday.

Uh...
Name 2 back to back events that were more exciting to watch from "heydays."

I bet these 2 cards had more finishes and fotn candidates than any previous 2 combined events.

My point is he's looking at the names and drama associated with it and meanwhile he's missing some of the best displays of the sport. If the drama and the pageantry is your thing then cool, do you. I enjoy a little of that too. Mostly I just bow down to the JBG.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

For me personally, it's the watering down of the product, favoritism/politics, and frankly Dana White and the executives greed and practices while having a near complete monopoly on MMA as a whole.

Although it's brought in some exciting fighters and made for some good fights, DWCS put out mostly unfinished products out into the octagon on cheap ass contracts to throw on as filler on cards. Maybe I'm biased, but some of my favorite fighters are Anderson Silva, Rampage, KZ, and probably Luque (if we're talking a newer fighter). Andy got fucked over, Rampage was forced back to Bellator and is semi-retired after getting floored by Fedor, KZ got wrecked in a gift title shot (showcase for Volk) and is close to retiring, and Luque despite being both exciting and on a good win streak drew lay n pray Belal in a unnecessary rematch and got outgrappled.

Compare that to Trump stan Colby Covington getting 2 title shots recently and Conor getting undeserved fights with the #2 LW in the division, losing both but still in the running for ANOTHER underseved LW title shot, boring ass Sean Strickland getting main events now and easy matchups on his way to a MW title shot, etc. What do all three of these men have in common? Disrespectful Right wing mentality and rhetoric. I admit they can be occasionally exciting (especially McGregor) but let's be real: Dana is playing favorites due to politics and money. Only Conor is the actual draw and his popularity is declining rapidly.

I was pissed when top 10 fighters like Overeem, FKL, Yoel Romero, were unfairly cut likely over their well deserved pay, Corey Anderson got shooed off to Bellator, the really fucked up Ngannou situation, the list goes on. The UFC doesn't give a fuck about talent anymore, they only care about controversy and profits. They underpay everyone on the roster and if you aren't the champ (who they still underpay anyway) and if you make a good amount of money in your contract, 2 to 3 hell even 1 loss and you're shown the door to save funds. This leads to most fighters fighting not to lose to and get cut because they're so fucking broke they cant afford to take risks to win fights. The poverty and lack of urgency shows in a majority of the fights nowadays. Add in top heavy, overpriced PPV cards with filler matchups and people like myself become very disillusioned.

Lastly, I can't put my finger on exactly what changed 10 - 15 years ago from now that fucked everything up, but I correlate dicks like Conor and Chael using cheap showman antics setting a precedent and keeping MMA as a pseudo-sport to line their own pockets. Matchups have gotten shittier since Joe Silva left sans obvious ones that need to be made, top 10 fighters rank squat for title shots and don't fight downwards, and fighters care more about becoming a draw and making money than actually being the best. The current UFC product is atrocious, only a handful of talented, skilled fighters are keeping things afloat, there are barely any new viable prospects on the rise, and frankly, I've almost completely lost interest in MMA as a whole. The UFC's monopoly from buying any viable rival org and taking all their fighters leaves orgs like Bellator and PFL with slim pickings, and frankly IMO the UFC going belly up would be the best thing to happen in MMA at this point.

It'll never happen though, and things will get much worse before they ever get better.

I think for the first couple of seasons of DWCS that was maybe a fair criticism (although they always signed shitty fighters from the regionals), but the quality has steadily increased as fighters see it as a way into the UFC. This years has some absolutely great prospects lined up to be on it.

 

[Arrrrgh]

They were amazing but you have to look at the tendency over the last 6 months. The card quality and interest took a serious dive after 269 in December

Well it's hard to gauge interest without owning an MMA site where I can look at the traffic data, or being the UFC/ESPN. That said, I suspect you are correct. Casuals love the drama. There have been a ton of good fights recently, just not a ton of the silly fake WWF drama stuff.

Nothing wrong with being a casual. I consider myself a casual fan. But missing good events because you don't recognize the fighters names and then complaining you are losing interest is just silly. Go do something else if you aren't interested in actually watching the fights and just want the drama story lines. Seriously, stop wasting your time watching something you don't enjoy.

 

[Prologue]

The sport is super boring without Conor McGregor hopefully he comes back soon rather than later

Damn... busted!

 

[Adebisi]

Most people lose interest in sports with age, tbh. It’s very natural to not care as much if you’ve been watching a sport forever, especially as your favorites retire and new blood is introduced. People look for excuses and claim a product is “worse”, but in reality, there isn’t much of a difference other than your own mentality.

Gambling is an easy way to sustain interest in a sport, though. That’s the biggest reason the NFL continues to succeed, fantasy football is bigger than the actual game, at this point, and they dominate gambling numbers, as well.

 

[Swarthy]

I told the fucking haters this would happen!! You scumbags had no appreciation for Conor and what he brought.

Hopefully he comes back soon to rescue us from this humdrum existence.

I feel you TS although the last two card was pretty exciting.

I wanna see Jiri do the walk in full Samurai Armour and regalia!! I just want to see the UFC loosen their grip on production and let fighters show some personality even if it isnt politically correct.

 

[Arrrrgh]

The sport is super boring without Conor McGregor hopefully he comes back soon rather than later

LOL
I don't know what you did to get banned but I feel like you knew it was coming when you made this dumbass comment.

 

[markg171]

The UFC's tried to go too much in the direction of a "regular" sports league by having so many and frequent events, but have missed the ball on what makes that work for their models: it's the same teams playing and they have mandatory matchups.

Plenty of people watch football in general every week, but most are looking forward to seeing their team every week. They'll follow along some teams or switch back and forth between games, but they've got their team they want to watch. They also look forward to some weeks more than others because of the matchup. The teams can't just avoid the good teams, they have to play them. They also have to play the bad teams, the fun teams, and the toss up teams. They have to play.

The key isn't having events every week and just putting on MMA, but making sure the fighters people want to see are fighting often, as well as in interesting matchups. If the fighters you like fight 1-2x a year, and are "wasting" fights on uninteresting fights, of course you'd get disinterested.

I'm not saying you need to force the fighters to fight 20-100x a year like other sport teams do, but you definitely need guys fighting more often. A UFC card every week means nothing if you don't care about who's on it. You'd be better off served with less cards and more talent on them, or less talent who have to fight more often. Right now the UFC just has to OFFER every active fighter 3x fights per year. Not the fighter has to ACCEPT 3 fights per year. That would already be a massive improvement on its own.

 

[Swarthy]

Honestly tho I get more excited about watching a Vet in Gambia squeeze Mango Worms out of dogs skin then any upcoming fight barring Lando and Whittaker.

 

[kflo]

For me personally, it's the watering down of the product, favoritism/politics, and frankly Dana White and the executives greed and practices while having a near complete monopoly on MMA as a whole.

Although it's brought in some exciting fighters and made for some good fights, DWCS put out mostly unfinished products out into the octagon on cheap ass contracts to throw on as filler on cards. Maybe I'm biased, but some of my favorite fighters are Anderson Silva, Rampage, KZ, and probably Luque (if we're talking a newer fighter). Andy got fucked over, Rampage was forced back to Bellator and is semi-retired after getting floored by Fedor, KZ got wrecked in a gift title shot (showcase for Volk) and is close to retiring, and Luque despite being both exciting and on a good win streak drew lay n pray Belal in a unnecessary rematch and got outgrappled.

Compare that to Trump stan Colby Covington getting 2 title shots recently and Conor getting undeserved fights with the #2 LW in the division, losing both but still in the running for ANOTHER underseved LW title shot, boring ass Sean Strickland getting main events now and easy matchups on his way to a MW title shot, etc. What do all three of these men have in common? Disrespectful Right wing mentality and rhetoric. I admit they can be occasionally exciting (especially McGregor) but let's be real: Dana is playing favorites due to politics and money. Only Conor is the actual draw and his popularity is declining rapidly.

I was pissed when top 10 fighters like Overeem, FKL, Yoel Romero, were unfairly cut likely over their well deserved pay, Corey Anderson got shooed off to Bellator, the really fucked up Ngannou situation, the list goes on. The UFC doesn't give a fuck about talent anymore, they only care about controversy and profits. They underpay everyone on the roster and if you aren't the champ (who they still underpay anyway) and if you make a good amount of money in your contract, 2 to 3 hell even 1 loss and you're shown the door to save funds. This leads to most fighters fighting not to lose to and get cut because they're so fucking broke they cant afford to take risks to win fights. The poverty and lack of urgency shows in a majority of the fights nowadays. Add in top heavy, overpriced PPV cards with filler matchups and people like myself become very disillusioned.

Lastly, I can't put my finger on exactly what changed 10 - 15 years ago from now that fucked everything up, but I correlate dicks like Conor and Chael using cheap showman antics setting a precedent and keeping MMA as a pseudo-sport to line their own pockets. Matchups have gotten shittier since Joe Silva left sans obvious ones that need to be made, top 10 fighters rank squat for title shots and don't fight downwards, and fighters care more about becoming a draw and making money than actually being the best. The current UFC product is atrocious, only a handful of talented, skilled fighters are keeping things afloat, there are barely any new viable prospects on the rise, and frankly, I've almost completely lost interest in MMA as a whole. The UFC's monopoly from buying any viable rival org and taking all their fighters leaves orgs like Bellator and PFL with slim pickings, and frankly IMO the UFC going belly up would be the best thing to happen in MMA at this point.

It'll never happen though, and things will get much worse before they ever get better.

So the fighters suck but the ufc has all the best fighters. Lol. Fighters are too poor. Quality was better in the old days when they were more poor.

 

[Bowel-forged Stool]

I told the fucking haters this would happen!! You scumbags had no appreciation for Conor and what he brought.

Hopefully he comes back soon to rescue us from this humdrum existence.

I feel you TS although the last two card was pretty exciting.

I wanna see Jiri do the walk in full Samurai Armour and regalia!! I just want to see the UFC loosen their grip on production and let fighters show some personality even if it isnt politically correct.

We were not worthy. Of the 3 times I’ve seen one of my very best friends who lives an hour away, 2 of them were McGregor fights.

 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

Meh. I'm still liking it. Yeah, it's changed from the old days, but It's still the best way to spend a Saturday night.

 

[Adebisi]

Honestly, many long-time fans of the product have probably been turned off by the decline of the American fighter. The only American male champion is somebody they hate(Aljo), Americans have a HORRIBLE record in title fights against non-Americans in recent years, there aren’t any notable prospects in sight, etc.

It’s probably tough to watch the rest of the world surpass them, especially everybody influenced by Khabib and Islam and their style of fighting.

You’ll never see a Chuck Liddell or Matt Hughes become champion ever again.

 

[kflo]

Honestly, many long-time fans of the product have probably been turned off by the decline of the American fighter. The only American male champion is somebody they hate(Aljo), Americans have a HORRIBLE record in title fights against non-Americans in recent years, there aren’t any notable prospects in sight, etc.

It’s probably tough to watch the rest of the world surpass them, especially everybody influenced by Khabib and Islam and their style of fighting.

You’ll never see a Chuck Liddell or Matt Hughes become champion ever again.

what is a chuck liddell or matt hughes??

 

[Brueskie]

I lost any real interest back when I began to only recognize one or two fighters on any given card. A bunch of rotating nobodies who are here to today and will be gone later today. Add to that referees are stepping in to stop the fights earlier and earlier.

It's background entertainment at best these days. I only pay attention when I hear the announcers start going nuts.

 

[RonMachineGunJhun]

The last two weekends the cards have been dynomite. This one this saturday looks great as well. Most of them have been free as well. No complaints from me. If any org is putting on scraps every single weekend your bound to have some off weekends.