It's no secret most fighters have come here for years, back in 2006 I had some good conversations with Josh Barnett.
In early 2008 I really wanted to see Rampage Vs. Wanderlei 3, so I took some time and put together a thread labeled Wand Vs. Ramp 3 - it was all hypothetical and I made it sound like I was an inside man - I told the forum the fight would take place on New Years Eve card in December .....it got a lot of replies and fans loved the idea of the match-up .....about three months after the thread was made the UFC announced that fight would in fact go down on the NYE card in December.
I think that was the moment it really cemented my opinion that many of the UFC brass come here and try to gauge fans reactions.
But what's dangerous is when Moderators abuse their power, this was the case from 2009-2014
They took away War threads -- a great way for fans to show their support to their favorite fighters, they took away hypothetical dream match up threads ....also I had the feeling mods were banning and deleting threads involving certain posters/fighters ...essentially swinging public perception.
As long as this forum is being run fairly and mods don't get out of hand these forums can flourish...but we still have a few "ego" mods running a muck ...we just have to avoid those sections.