Media Older fans need to accept that UFC is now entertainment 1st, competition 2nd

[HHJ]

That fight was completely meaningless because Cejudo’s current level at BW is completely unknown.

No it was asbsolutley not meaningless. The fight more or less told us what his current level at BW is.

Still elite level,but a step behind Aljo at the moment.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

So the antics after the fight invalidate the actual fights? You may want to tell Dober after his face looked like he got hit with a bat last night. Wrong.

Secondly, the UFC, and MMA for that matter has always had fighters talk smack, use the heel angle for attention, and has been filled with petty beef.

Kimo with the cross. Tank Abbott. Ken leaving MMA for WWE along with Dan Severn. Sonnen cutting WWE promos pre and post fight. Ortiz and the grave digger and his Lion's Den beef. Chuck and Tito. Brock Lesnar.

As usual just more reactionary takes in the moment without rational thought. Fighters have always entered the cage for face offs. Sometimes they talk smack. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes a guy grabs a red jacket and jumps atop the cage.

Yeah all of that stuff is whatever.

For me it’s all about the matchmaking, they have definitely gotten and will continue to get looser and looser with pushing whoever they think is the short term draw, giving unearned TS’s, giving easy matchups to who they want to push, burying guys who are elite with the toughest matchups possible, etc.

Remember a few months ago when they gave TJ a BS TS, and then he admitted in the post fight interview that he and everyone knew his shoulders were completely destroyed and he basically went in for a paycheck and knew he had next to no chance? Anyone like myself who was interested in the fight and talked about it was just straight up scammed. Then the next TS is given to Cejudo who hasn’t fought in years and was way overrated at BW to begin with… meanwhile there are all these great BW’s out there, but let’s keep pushing guys who already have names (that don’t draw anyway) whether they’re competitive or not.

I don’t wanna come on here and shit on the UFC all the time because I always hated the guys who did that on here, but IMO there is a pretty clear trend towards more entertainment based matchmaking vs sports based matchmaking which IMO will hurt them long term when even casuals are seeing things like Colby getting a TS and scoffing at it.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Pretty much agree . Like you said Colby getting a title shot is just so.... Well GROSS frankly . And this matchmaking combined with Slap Fighting-WWE characteristics just makes it so much worse.. like being 100% real to be honest watching UFC and other orgs (to a lesser extent to be fair) makes me feel like a pig gorging at the trough . The vibes... They are fucked lol.

Like when they had that 18 year old kid fight under the big lights because he won a DWCS match and predictably he fought like he was having a panic attack(I don't blame him to an extent).. like wtf are "we" doing here come on..

I know man, like why even push that kid it doesn’t even make sense lol.

There are still great fighters putting on great fights, and that will always be there, but yeah… just frustrating when so much of what happens especially at the elite level is bullshit.

 

[Carrotman23]

I know man, like why even push that kid it doesn’t even make sense lol.

There are still great fighters putting on great fights, and that will always be there, but yeah… just frustrating when so much of what happens especially at the elite level is bullshit.

100% . And yeah same at the end of the day I'm still watching cause I love fighting . A pig in shit as it were!

 

[Askafan]

The fight game has always been more than a sport, it's part of its charm. Young whippersnappers thinking there's anything new under the sun is always amusing.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

No it was asbsolutley not meaningless. The fight more or less told us what his current level at BW is.

Still elite level,but a step behind Aljo at the moment.

It means absolutely nothing for Aljo though, that’s the point.

They should’ve made Cejudo fight a BW contender or two so then we know how good he is going in, not try to figure it out by how does against Aljo, that’s ass backwards.

So now there hasn’t been a meaningful title fight at BW all year… uck.

 

[HHJ]

It means absolutely nothing for Aljo though, that’s the point.

They should’ve made Cejudo fight a BW contender or two so then we know how good he is going in, not try to figure it out by how does against Aljo, that’s ass backwards.

So now there hasn’t been a meaningful title fight at BW all year… uck.

Aljo doesnt have alot of great options. A win over Cejudo is better than them not fighting at all. If Cejudo had lost against a contender,then he wouldnt get that notch on his belt,and be worse off.

Also lets not pretend that he steamrolled Cejudo like he did TJ

 

[Carrotman23]

The fight game has always been more than a sport, it's part of its charm. Young whippersnappers thinking there's anything new under the sun is always amusing.

Missing the point, it was more wild west and lively back then. Right now it's the worst of both worlds. Entertainment without the organic libido and aesthetic variety. Give me plastic with great professional matchmaking or a freak show with chaos and fun, not this weird mix of both.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Aljo doesnt have alot of great options. A win over Cejudo is better than them not fighting at all. If Cejudo had lost against a contender,then he wouldnt get that notch on his belt,and be worse off.

Also lets not pretend that he steamrolled Cejudo like he did TJ

Yeah I get what you’re saying, this is how the UFC views it, but I don’t believe in this philosophy.

If Cejudo can’t beat a contender, then he shouldn’t get the shot. They shouldn’t give him a shot because he has a name and they’re scared he will lose to someone so go ahead and give him the TS so nobody knows how good he actually currently is and hopefully people assume he is as good as he was a few years ago (which he never even proved he was a great BW back then but whatever)

That’s entertainment based matchmaking vs sports based matchmaking, and of course there will always be a mix of both, but for my taste I want 90/10 sports to entertainment, not 40/60.

 

[TheBulge]

I think prior to Belal, and to a lesser degree Dariush, you would be right. I think the immense backlash to these two situations in particular is not because they have hardcore fans, but rather because this is a significant jump from the credible arguments the UFC used to make.

I know qualified is subjective, but even prior to Burns last night, there is no rational case for Colby's third title shot (off a win over #6) ahead of Belal (4 top 10 wins, 2 top 5 wins), without mentioning PPV draw.

The only half-hearted dogshit response the UFC could argue is that "Colby is #1 contender and, hey, we don't make the rankings". But then you have to make the Pavlovich fight over Stipe or make Izzy vs Rob III, so the UFC certainly doesn't want to commit to that position.

I would argue that if you cannot make a coherent case for someone without mentioning PPV sales, then it's not qualified or based on merit.

For Colby it's probably on the basis that at one point it was legit and his whole TS got 'stalled' up untill now and they want to get him out of the way first. I don't disagree that Dariush should be fighting for the title over the other LW's though.

The worst case I can remember is old Hendo and GSP getting titleshots over Romero, Jacare, RW etc.

 

[HHJ]

Yeah I get what you’re saying, this is how the UFC views it, but I don’t believe in this philosophy.

If Cejudo can’t beat a contender, then he shouldn’t get the shot. They shouldn’t give him a shot because he has a name and they’re scared he will lose to someone so go ahead and give him the TS so nobody knows how good he actually currently is and hopefully people assume he is as good as he was a few years ago (which he never even proved he was a great BW back then but whatever)

That’s entertainment based matchmaking vs sports based matchmaking, and of course there will always be a mix of both, but for my taste I want 90/10 sports to entertainment, not 40/60.

The Cejudo we saw last night could have beaten a contender. Just slightly behind Aljo. I aint ready to close the book on him though. With some more mat time,he could do better in a rematch imo.

 

[Lee_]

Tbh if anyone denies it being that way since the conception of TUF they haven't been paying much attention.

It's like that in every sport though. MLB changed a ton of pitching and hitting rules, not because of competition, because their current state caused things to be boring af. NFL rules cater to the passing game because that's what's entertaining and brings eyes. IIWII

True, but it is worse in MMA. If you win enough in the regular season, and you win enough in the playoffs, you get a shot at the title for sure in baseball. The UFC doesn't have any sort of equitable system like that.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

The Cejudo we saw last night could have beaten a contender. Just slightly behind Aljo. I aint ready to close the book on him though. With some more mat time,he could do better in a rematch imo.

You don’t know that, you are probably right, but these guys have to prove it, we can’t always just assume they are at a certain level.

It’s the same thing people do/did with Colby, I think Colby is/was actually a very good WW and Usman’s wins against him were likely really good wins, but we don’t know that because Colby hasn’t proven it. We can’t just eye test everything and assume Colby was the 2nd best WW in the world for years because he did well against Usman and we think he probably is.

And IMO people view Usman’s resume a lot differently than they did a few years ago because of this, and it will continue to get worse. Once you’re a few years removed and that hype/context is gone, all of the sudden Usman goes from close to passing GSP (in some people’s minds) to being miles away from GSP in almost everyone’s minds.

If these guys are so good why can’t they just fight contenders lol? Think of how much more interesting that Cejudo fight would’ve been if we saw him beat O’Malley or Merab six months ago.

And if the UFC made them, they’d fight, but the UFC doesn’t because like you said, they’re scared they will lose so it goes back to my last post, let’s just hope everyone assumes Cejudo is good because we don’t want to risk him losing.

It’s so bad for the sport IMO, but I appreciate your perspective. Maybe I’m wrong.

 

[LincolnHawk1]

Yeah all of that stuff is whatever.

For me it’s all about the matchmaking, they have definitely gotten and will continue to get looser and looser with pushing whoever they think is the short term draw, giving unearned TS’s, giving easy matchups to who they want to push, burying guys who are elite with the toughest matchups possible, etc.

Remember a few months ago when they gave TJ a BS TS, and then he admitted in the post fight interview that he and everyone knew his shoulders were completely destroyed and he basically went in for a paycheck and knew he had next to no chance? Anyone like myself who was interested in the fight and talked about it was just straight up scammed. Then the next TS is given to Cejudo who hasn’t fought in years and was way overrated at BW to begin with… meanwhile there are all these great BW’s out there, but let’s keep pushing guys who already have names (that don’t draw anyway) whether they’re competitive or not.

I don’t wanna come on here and shit on the UFC all the time because I always hated the guys who did that on here, but IMO there is a pretty clear trend towards more entertainment based matchmaking vs sports based matchmaking which IMO will hurt them long term when even casuals are seeing things like Colby getting a TS and scoffing at it.

I thought most mma fans knew this already. At this point for the ufc it’s about promotion and entertainment more than it is an actual sport in traditional sense of sport. Yes it is a competition still, but it’s mostly not about the most deserving person getting the title shot, a majority of the time it’s a big name or someone the ufc is trying to promote who gets the TS. Case in point, Alex Pereira. He is an elite MW now and we saw that with his fights so far, however he had what like 2 or 3 ufc fights and a grand total of what like 5 pro mma fights before he got Izzy. Because of their history together and the fact he can knock any MW head into orbit, he got the TS. But in the sporting aspect of it he should have worked his way up the mountain to get the TS which usually would take someone like 7-10 fight’s depending on who they are beating and how they are winning. There are other example of this but just thinking recently.

 

[King in the North]

Wasn’t it always?

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

I thought most mma fans knew this already. At this point for the ufc it’s about promotion and entertainment more than it is an actual sport in traditional sense of sport. Yes it is a competition still, but it’s mostly not about the most deserving person getting the title shot, a majority of the time it’s a big name or someone the ufc is trying to promote who gets the TS. Case in point, Alex Pereira. He is an elite MW now and we saw that with his fights so far, however he had what like 2 or 3 ufc fights and a grand total of what like 5 pro mma fights before he got Izzy. Because of their history together and the fact he can knock any MW head into orbit, he got the TS. But in the sporting aspect of it he should have worked his way up the mountain to get the TS which usually would take someone like 7-10 fight’s depending on who they are beating and how they are winning. There are other example of this but just thinking recently.

Well yeah we did, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna rant about it from time to time haha.

But yeah I agree, I was saying that about Pereira from the jump, and now people are wanting him to get the same treatment at 205 so we can rig everything to get a third fight between him and Izzy for the 205 belt.

AT LEAST in that case Izzy had legitimately cleaned out the division and had a lot of defenses… but honestly that is so often the excuse for these types of bullshit matchups, people said the same about Cejudo getting his BS shot even though Aljo hasn’t fought a legit contender other than Yan.

Maybe there aren’t contenders in these divisions because the UFC doesn’t do a good job of making contenders because all they ever think about is the next PPV. Maybe they have created a culture of guys not taking fights because they see some of the top guys have success doing the same thing.

I don’t have all the answers, but when you look at the most stacked division in the UFC have a basically new champ in terms of contenders he hasn’t defended his belt against, and people are already rationalizing BS matchups by saying he has no contenders so fuck it throw Cejudo in there… maybe just maybe the UFC has a problem creating contenders.

 

[Dr Fong]

Meh. There's been stunts like that dating all the way back. It's always been sports entertainment. It's prize fighting at the end of the day. People just have short memories and always reminisce about the past being better than the present.

And people accusing others of phony nostalgia and cherry picking cases to back it up are just engaging in historical revisionism.

The fact is that the UFC's key themes back in the day were 'As real as it gets' and 'the best fight the best'. It tried to distance itself from WWE to ensure people knew it was a sport, and distinguish itself from boxing by claiming a more meritocratic approach to matchups.

There has always been aspects of WWE-style bullshit and favoritsm with title shots, of course. But it was a lot less prevalent than it is now. They have dropped any pretence that title shots are based on wins and merit.

It has legitimately degraded. It was never perfect but it wasn't always as bad as this.

 

[fightfan70]

its been a shit show since broc, ronda and conor had the public eye.

its been downhill since then.

it has been sports entertainment for quite some time now.

 

[TheTickG]

Not a big deal. Older fans were Pride fans a lot of the time. Used to this approach.

 

[Trabaho]

The fights are real. Only thing that matters.