The Decline in quality of UFC PPVs and events [POLL]

How would you rate UFC PPVs ?

  • Excellent

    Votes: 16 4.1%

  • Good

    Votes: 79 20.4%

  • Average

    Votes: 121 31.3%

  • Below Average

    Votes: 119 30.7%

  • Bad

    Votes: 52 13.4%
  • Total voters
    387
I remember back in the day. 10 cards per year, I caught 9 of them. 5 stacked fights per card.

No wmma or microweights.
 
UFC 299 and 300 was this year, so I say their cards are fine.
 
I go in peaks and valleys with my fandom. Every 2-3 years there a fighter that peaks my interest and I follow their career across PPVs and Fight nights. Sometimes it lasts long enough to get invested in an entire era. Sometimes there's a straight killer like Fedor, Anderson, McGregor, or Jones and it's a hype train. Sometimes it's a whole division like the log jam at 155 during the Khabib, Cucuy days.
 
CatchtheseHands said:
Champs generally still do defend 2-3 times a year dude.
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Seriously? Jones hasn't defend in almost 18 months. Alex Pereira is an anomaly -- before that Jamal Hill sat on his title for over a year before being forced to fight. Admittedly middleweight has been pretty active with a lot of turnover. But Leon Edwards attempted only 3 title defenses in 2 years. Islam is already slowing down at 155, with only 1 title defense in 2024. Topuria is a brand new champ that's already gone 8 months between title fights.

Sure, a lot of these can be attributed to "injuries", but that's exactly the point and the problem. You think Chuck Liddell fought 3x a year and was never injured? Of course he was injured. But he fought through the injuries because that's what MMA fighters are supposed to do. Top fighters these days don't want to fight unless everything is perfect. That's why guys like Khamzat pull out of so many fights. Somewhat injured? Nope, not fighting unless 100%. Weight cut going badly? Just quit and don't make weight. You've got food poisoining? Better pull out of the fight because things aren't going perfectly.

This mentality needs to change.
 
Alpha_T83 said:
Seriously? Jones hasn't defend in almost 18 months. Alex Pereira is an anomaly -- before that Jamal Hill sat on his title for over a year before being forced to fight. Admittedly middleweight has been pretty active with a lot of turnover. But Leon Edwards attempted only 3 title defenses in 2 years. Islam is already slowing down at 155, with only 1 title defense in 2024. Topuria is a brand new champ that's already gone 8 months between title fights.
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You're cherry picking dude. The previous line up of champs were very active. This current line up is still quite active. The problem currently isn't so much the fighters as much as it is the UFC. A lot of the hiccups we're seeing is due to the UFC making champs wait to fight the guy THEY want them to fight. Like DDP could have defended a while ago if the UFC didn't have such a hard on for making Izzy vs DDP and Jon would have been stripped a while ago if they weren't pushing so hard for JJ vs Stipe.

Alpha_T83 said:
Sure, a lot of these can be attributed to "injuries", but that's exactly the point and the problem. You think Chuck Liddell fought 3x a year and was never injured? Of course he was injured. But he fought through the injuries because that's what MMA fighters are supposed to do. Top fighters these days don't want to fight unless everything is perfect. That's why guys like Khamzat pull out of so many fights. Somewhat injured? Nope, not fighting unless 100%. Weight cut going badly? Just quit and don't make weight. You've got food poisoining? Better pull out of the fight because things aren't going perfectly.

This mentality needs to change.
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There's a difference between minor injuries and major injuries. Top fighters still do fight with minor injuries dude, the only time they normally pull out is when they are super sick or super injured. Demanding fighters to still fight with injuries or illness that is beyond manageable is very dangerous. Combat sports isn't like other sports where the worst that happens when you go out super injured or sick is you get pulled off and benched. In fighting, if you go out super injured or sick you can get REALLY fucked up.
 
PEDRO IVO RUSSO MIRANDA said:
We have a Lot of shit cards in the First half of This year, excludind UFC 300.
Well, maybe we have so much bad cards cause 300 need to be extra stacked and Dana spend all his resources?
But seems like the latter PPVs of this year are becoming really good, 308 is super stacked.

My vote is Average
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Yea 299 SUCKED!
 
I'd argue that anyone who judges a card on paper vs. the results it delivers is a filthy stinkin casual. In the current model and era of the UFC we're not going to know who at least half of these goons are or give a shit about them. All I care about is if the fights are good and entertaining and that can happen whether a guy is ranked 3rd or 367th. Some fights deliver, others don't. It's always been that way. Sure, cards were more stacked when there were less fighters and less events but so what, thats not how it is anymore. Content is king, that's where the whole entertainment industry is at. Lesser product, more volume. Thems the times.
 
It’s been a pretty rough year so far in terms of PPVs outside of 299/300 and a few of the upcoming ones. Cards like UFC 301 & 302 shouldn’t happen with the prices they’re charging nowadays.
 
Paolo Delutis said:
I think it depends alot about what your a fan of too ..

Are you a fan of certain fighters or are you a fan of the sport itself...


My thinking being if your viewership is only tied to certain fighters or era of fighters then your going feel like theirs a decline when they're gone...


Vs

If your a fan of the sport itself , your probably unlikely to feel a drop off as much.

I would say like all sports, MMA goes through peaks and valleys , i dont think they have gone downhill, just maybe their aren't as many stellar stand out fighters currently as the talent might be in more of a valley then a peak as the overall skill increases and the difference between fighters becomes smaller untill someone comes along and bumps the level again ( another Anderson,GSP, Randy, ETC) ..


In conclusion the UFC's are somewhere between Good and Excellent, on average i dont remember a truly bad card...but im a purist and a fan of the sport first and remember the days of 1 ppv per 2 months or even 3 months so i might be the wrong person to ask ...i watch all fights all the time..every card... I dont do smoke breaks for WMMA etc
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Being a fan of the sport means that I must appreciate watching a bunch of no name cans fighting on PPVs in the premier MMA organization? That's a very weird way of looking at it.
 
Price of the PPVs are pretty bad and it’s lame they have not come up with some better deals for buying them in bulk or subscription.

That said I will always prefer more cards over less. Waiting a month for a 5 fight main card with no access to prelims sounds terrible to go back to.

Pretty much all of the fighters I was a huge fan of when I started really getting into MMA have been retired for a while now. I don’t often get sweaty pits anymore when watching as there aren’t too many fighters I’d consider myself a big fan of. But I think that’s also because I got older too. I watch almost every card and if I miss them I read play by play. I’m more of a fan of fighting than I am of specific fighters or the “show” aspect of it (although I appreciate it).
 
Bend NvR Break said:
Imagine going to the steak house 40 times in 5 months and you notice that when you first started eating there you had a solid dry aged medium rare steak reverse seared cooked in seasoned garlic truffle butter with asparagus and a loaded baked potato for $45 but after 5 months you're getting a regular well done pan fried steak with french fries, coke and A1 sauce for $65.

Not only is the oversaturation a problem but the quality of fighters has gone down with the expansion of the roster. The roster has way too many guys on it that should be in the regional circuits still imo. The UFC should be for established combat athletes not prospects.
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I think that is the tight rope that the UFC walks on daily.

They got so many events(because that is what media partners demand) and moving parts that I believe they feel the need to have a very extensive roster to draw from at a moments notice. Totally agree they have way to many fighters and I think they have too many events also.

I'm kind of shocked that they haven't tried to make a UFC lite or whatever that is basically its feeder league to the UFC and sell separate media rights for that. Who knows, maybe no one wants to pay for that or maybe that way of thinking would get them in more trouble with their lawsuits.
 
Reach4theSky said:
If you can get 3 or 4 fights that interests you, it's a good event. Expecting a banger stacked card every time is unreasonable imo.

Most cards throughout history (As long as I remember) have been like that. Stacked cards have always been few and far between in relation to the UFC..

The card in question (Sphere) has 4 fights that interests me..

O'Malley vs Merab
Ortega vs Lopes
Rosas JR vs Aori
Grasso vs Valentina

(in that order)

Good enough. Look forward to it..
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I believe it’s not always a decline in quality, but more fighters whose names you don’t know.

When Khabib fought tibau, I had no idea who he was. Now he is a brand name
 
Paladin said:
I believe it’s not always a decline in quality, but more fighters whose names you don’t know.

When Khabib fought tibau, I had no idea who he was. Now he is a brand name
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This is a good point. I remember watching a young unknown fighter fight Jake O'Brien and surprisingly submit him with relative ease...

That guy turned out to be Jon Jones..
 
Overall PPV quality has maybe declined somewhat but a much bigger difference from the UFCs peak is all the skippable zero hype Apex stuff in between those PPVs. I get that some people are happy to just have content to consume every weekend but I much preferred it when you would have a 3-4 week wait between cards and would rarely consider missing one.
 
whocares said:
I'd argue that anyone who judges a card on paper vs. the results it delivers is a filthy stinkin casual. In the current model and era of the UFC we're not going to know who at least half of these goons are or give a shit about them. All I care about is if the fights are good and entertaining and that can happen whether a guy is ranked 3rd or 367th. Some fights deliver, others don't. It's always been that way. Sure, cards were more stacked when there were less fighters and less events but so what, thats not how it is anymore. Content is king, that's where the whole entertainment industry is at. Lesser product, more volume. Thems the times.
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The problem is there are too many fighters and too many cards

People forget the awesome moments that do happen in lieu of volume. There were 520 fights in 2023
 
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