MMA Decline or UFC Decline?

[Tweak896]

Many of the "skilled eras" are fighters who mostly fought pre-2015 (USADA). I'm not here to point fingers at who did what, but that was a major turning point of the sport and reshaped the divisions. If we keep asking why guys pre-2015 did amazing feats and looked so different to modern guys its probably before USADA. Even Pride had fighters do some crazy things that you won't see in modern mma and it goes beyond skill.

Now to add on top of it, UFC has a deal with ESPN to pump out quanity of cards over quality. They have the apex arena so they could have 2 nobodies as main event and not have to stress about selling tickets out.

 

[Dionysian]

Enjoying all the mental gymnastics of WME PR accounts posting how the sport has evolved when Alex and Gane somehow both won belts with white belt level grappling and having never ONCE faced a grappler in their professional lifetimes all the way up to the title shot.

That bullshit never happened before now, and is now commonplace. The quality of skill in divisions 185 and above has definitely regressed. I remember back in the day when Zuffa PR accounts would call kickboxers with no grappling getting sacrificed in Pride as "freakshow" fights and now they defend similar fighters winning belts (as opposed as ever getting sacrificed because they never fight a grappler) as evolution of the sport lol.

 

[HHJ]

You ok??

Not since 1993,no.

 

[Taric]

The LHW & HW divisions are just unfortunate.

I'd say LW & WW have never been better however.

 

[loptyjoe]

Definitely not at MW and above. The skill level has dropped off dramatically

Yeah you're right. Tim Sylvia is way more skilled than the current heavyweights. We also can't forget about the great skills of cabbage.

 

[Sweater of AV]

The UFC has no interest in having the best fighters...everyone knows this.

 

[BowserJr]

Yeah you're right. Tim Sylvia is way more skilled than the current heavyweights. We also can't forget about the great skills of cabbage.

Derrick Lewis = Cabbage he was top 10 for how long?

Big Timmy would decision everyone except Gane, Jones, Ngannou, Volkov

His weakness for the most part were fast, explosive power strikers and expert submission fighters.