Making Cards Great Again - Better Fighters, Higher Stakes

[Bone Cold]

The decline in card quality has been the talk of Sherdog for years, with the two of the most common criticisms being "I don't know half (or more) of the fighters on the card" and "this match has no stakes / is meaningless".

This problem, in my mind, is purely mathematical; driven by the irregularity in which ranked fighters complete in modern MMA (to the extent that a champion is praised as "highly active" for competing twice per year).

So what could be done?

1. Incentivise fighters to compete more regularly
I would contractualise a "fight frequency multiplier" on fighter salaries, whereby if they compete every 6 months (twice per year) they receive 20% more in take home pay per fight and if they compete every 4 months (thrice per year) they receive 50% more in take home pay per fight.

2. Expand the rankings so the consequences of wins/losses on the undercard are better understood
I would increase the number of ranked fighters to 25.

Assuming fighters across the UFC's 11 divisions are incentivised to compete 3 times per year, the composition of a 12 bout card for 40 weeks per year could be:
- 6 bout main card with all 12 fighters ranked in the top 15.
- 6 bout undercard with 8 fighters ranked between 15-25 and 4 fighters unranked (seeking to break into the rankings)

Contrast this to the next 5 cards, two of which are PPVs, and the uptick in quality is evident:
Fight Night 246: 14 bouts - 9 ranked fighters across 5 bouts
Fight Night 247: 13 bouts - 4 ranked fighters across 3 bouts
UFC 309: 11 bouts - 9 ranked fighters across 5 bouts
Fight Night 248: 14 bouts - 6 ranked fighters across 3 bouts
UFC 310: 11 bouts - 11 ranked fighters across 7 bouts

What are your thoughts? Would this be better?

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

They need to not sign so much low level talent, but their goal is to cut costs to increase profits.

They are drug dealers that continually cut their product with baby powder progressively more and more. With a guaranteed buyer (ESPN), they’ve got no incentive to stop.

So if you keep snorting that shit prepare to shit your brains out.

 

[Petarito]

I like and support bith of your ideas..they make sense

 

[kfighter]

The solution is simple: get rid of wmma.

 

[theincognito]

Fewer cards or fewer fights per card are the only ways.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

Yet there are those who say that nothing is wrong, just stop thinking and evaluating while eating what our corporate overlords spew out

 

[rollthedice]

both are plausible ideas that would help both marketing, a mirage of added depth in every division. The only thing you forgot to suggest was creating a separate product completely to promote WMMA.

 

[rollthedice]

Fewer cards or fewer fights per card are the only ways.

Fewer fights per card works well with boxing. As it stands a most UFC events run for 4-6 hours. Why not decrease them to 3 hours max (that's plenty of time for a live sporting event) and aim for 6 quality fights. For example how would these two cards do?

Example 1:
Main Card (PPV)
Main event: Alex Pereira VS Magomed Ankalaev LHW Title
Co Main: Islam Makhachev VS Arman Tsarukyan LW Title
Fight 4: Leon Edwards VS JDM #1 Contender WW match
Fight 3: Sean O'Malley VS Deiveson Figueredo BW showcase fight

Prelims:
Fight 2: Carlos Ulberg VS Volkan Oezdimer
FIght 1: Anthony Hernandez VS Shara Magomedov

for a total run time of 3 hours: would this sell more than most ppvs nowadays?

 

[DecisionSplit]

Fewer fights per card works well with boxing. As it stands a most UFC events run for 4-6 hours. Why not decrease them to 3 hours max (that's plenty of time for a live sporting event) and aim for 6 quality fights. For example how would these two cards do?

The cards only run long because of commercials. You take out the delays between fights and you could cut each even down by half or more in running time. You cut the long intros and decision reads and you could remove even more unnecessary time. A UFC event without endless commercials would run under four hours without losing a single fight.

 

[rollthedice]

The cards only run long because of commercials. You take out the delays between fights and you could cut each even down by half or more in running time. You cut the long intros and decision reads and you could remove even more unnecessary time. A UFC event without endless commercials would run under four hours without losing a single fight.

because the product is set for one fight per 30min, or two per hour. Hence why my proposal doesn't effect the pacing, just the overall total time decreases

 

[Oscar Madison]

The decline in card quality has been the talk of Sherdog for years, with the two of the most common criticisms being "I don't know half (or more) of the fighters on the card" and "this match has no stakes / is meaningless".

This problem, in my mind, is purely mathematical; driven by the irregularity in which ranked fighters complete in modern MMA (to the extent that a champion is praised as "highly active" for competing twice per year).

So what could be done?

1. Incentivise fighters to compete more regularly
I would contractualise a "fight frequency multiplier" on fighter salaries, whereby if they compete every 6 months (twice per year) they receive 20% more in take home pay per fight and if they compete every 4 months (thrice per year) they receive 50% more in take home pay per fight.

2. Expand the rankings so the consequences of wins/losses on the undercard are better understood
I would increase the number of ranked fighters to 25.

Assuming fighters across the UFC's 11 divisions are incentivised to compete 3 times per year, the composition of a 12 bout card for 40 weeks per year could be:
- 6 bout main card with all 12 fighters ranked in the top 15.
- 6 bout undercard with 8 fighters ranked between 15-25 and 4 fighters unranked (seeking to break into the rankings)

Contrast this to the next 5 cards, two of which are PPVs, and the uptick in quality is evident:
Fight Night 246: 14 bouts - 9 ranked fighters across 5 bouts
Fight Night 247: 13 bouts - 4 ranked fighters across 3 bouts
UFC 309: 11 bouts - 9 ranked fighters across 5 bouts
Fight Night 248: 14 bouts - 6 ranked fighters across 3 bouts
UFC 310: 11 bouts - 11 ranked fighters across 7 bouts

What are your thoughts? Would this be better?

You should be on Shark Tank.

Billions of dollars to be made!

Good luck!

 

[theincognito]

Fewer fights per card works well with boxing. As it stands a most UFC events run for 4-6 hours. Why not decrease them to 3 hours max (that's plenty of time for a live sporting event) and aim for 6 quality fights. For example how would these two cards do?

Example 1:
Main Card (PPV)
Main event: Alex Pereira VS Magomed Ankalaev LHW Title
Co Main: Islam Makhachev VS Arman Tsarukyan LW Title
Fight 4: Leon Edwards VS JDM #1 Contender WW match
Fight 3: Sean O'Malley VS Deiveson Figueredo BW showcase fight

Prelims:
Fight 2: Carlos Ulberg VS Volkan Oezdimer
FIght 1: Anthony Hernandez VS Shara Magomedov

for a total run time of 3 hours: would this sell more than most ppvs nowadays?

The difference is boxing cards typically have multiple 12/10/8 round fights, so following the exact same bout count wouldn't work well for UFC with its consistent 3x5 format.

Plus UFC isn't going to want to shorten prelims so much because less television time would mean less ad revenue.

But 11-14 bouts per UFC card is still way more than needed.

More realistic would be: 5 fight main cards + 4 fight prelims = 9 total bouts per card. You would basically just be cutting out the early internet prelims that no one watches anyway.

That'd be between 2-5 fewer fights (or 4-10 fewer fighters) per card, which would still allow you to cut a lot of fat from the roster.

 

[Khaosan]

They need to add show bonuses just for making it to the damn fight.

 

[DougieJones]

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter

 

[RichardHarrow]

They are drug dealers that continually cut their product with baby powder progressively more and more.

That’s oddly specific.

 

[Egészségére!]

If they’re unscathed like Khamzat after Rob then cool but I’d be careful about a system that pressures them to fight sooner than they’re ready especially after a war or a KO loss

 

[Deleted member 513083]

The reason a lot of cards are so shitty, is because the roster is super inflated.
There is probably a large 3 digit amount of fighters signed right now, and a lot of them are not elite.

If you cut out all the non elite fighters, you would have less cards but better and more entertaining ones. But the UFC needs to protect its monopoly and if we didn't have cards almost every week we would miss all those awesome sponsorship commercials that are totally not more unprofessional than fighters having their own sponsors on their ring attire.

Welcome to capitalism, Dollar is king.

 

[DoctorStoppage]

Yeah, they absolutely need to implement a fight frequency multiplier. The inactivity from great fighters is killing these cards.

 

[World eater]

While TS’ ideas are not bad per se, one should ask the important question here. If the hardcore fanbase is growing disappointed, but the UFC is doing better than ever, maybe we are no longer the target audience?

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

That’s oddly specific.

I’ve always liked the idea of “MMA as a drug” analogy, it’s a very fitting comparison in so many ways.

That and my unquenchable thirst to snort various powders obviously…