Making Cards Great Again - Better Fighters, Higher Stakes

[SalvadorAllende]

I for once welcome this bullshit cards because I can skip them altogether or just watch the co-main and/or the main event and maybe a loose fight here and there.

Then they stack a card like last PPV and I get a UFC night for myself.

 

[nintey]

I've always thought they should have a minor league with a ranking system that fighters climb to get into the UFC. Somewhat like DWCS but more structured. These would be the weekly cards with the main event always being winner makes it to the UFC. Could be something as simple as win 3 fight and you're in. This way they could build new stars as they climb the ranks.

The UFC would be PPV/ESPN once a month and would be stacked with talent and names. They could have some sort of system where you lose 3 and you go back to the minors or leave the UFC. Keep it a limited about of fighters in each division.

I do like incentivizing fighters to fight more often but that would lead to taking risky fights while injured. I do think champions need to fight 2x a year barring injury with more interim champs. If Champ doesn't fight within a year Interim becomes champ. It's complicated to keep fighters on a frequent schedule.

 

[daniel san]

I don't think it's ever getting fixed. They seem to be making a lot of money by slowly watering down the product and increasing margins by signing mediocre fighters. The two main problems are the number of cards they put on, of which at least half of them are skipable, and that the good fighters don't fight enough. If elite fighters fought AT LEAST twice a year, or three times per year, then we'd have plenty of events that are pretty good even if it's a Fight Night card. However, the more popular you become, the less you generally will fight. Instead we have a bunch of no names that are on the main card and stinking it up. In addition, getting rid of WMMA and FlW also wouldn't hurt.

To "fix" the product and make it great again, is actually quite easy technically, but financially it is not doable because they get paid too much by ESPN. I can't imagine that the product will ever get fixed unless Dana White retires and a new CEO comes in with a new vision.

 

[pick999]

Have conor fight every card

 

[Neck&Neck]

I’d rather have a card every single day, filled with cans, jobbers and soccer moms

 

[CroCopsLHK]

- Trim roster by about 20% - UFC should be the pinnacle of talent. No more international gimme contracts

- A max of 3 events a month:
- 1 PPV, one live fight night in a city, one Apex card
- PPV structure should stay the same, but don't balance out main card with WMMA or smaller weight classes just because. I want to be very invested in every ppv main card fight
- Monthly city card needs to be really big, a light ppv. A few times a year have a title defended off ppv in a city
- Apex cards need to be a little better but under no circumstances better than the live crowd shows

More cards does not necessarily mean better. A week a month should be enough time for UFC and their roster to get their bearings in order. Sometimes nowadays there's a card every single week. The fans need a break too. We don't need to tune into something like yesterday's card EVERY Saturday

 

[gracie_barra_samurai]

The solution is simple: get rid of wmma.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Its just an unavoidable side effect of becoming a mainstream sport unfortunately. The networks want content basically every weekend but the sport doesnt have a big enough talent pool to be able to keep up with that while maintaining a high quality product. And unlike athletes from a lot of other sports, fighters cant compete dozens of times a year. So we end up with shit tons of throwaway cards full of throwaway fighters spread across shit tons of divisions. Its extremely hard to keep with and totally burnout inducing.

I think MMA always worked better as a big spectacle that you'd get once a month or so. Maybe with a handful of Fight Night cards a year mixed in.