The UFC must be aiming for an event every week in the long run

What I kind of think this is ultimately coming down to is a weekly night of UFC fights, which I hope it does. They're signing people left and right at the moment and cutting way less fighters. I remember them saying they wanted an all UFC TV channel at one point. The Strikeforce acquisition, Woman's MMA and the lighter weight divisions, it's an absolute no brainer that they could be heading for this.

Maybe an every Friday night fights kind of thing say on FX or Fuel, which would work in my opinion.

While everyone here has seen the Hardy treatment where a nationality can almost always be certain your contract is safe regardless how many times you lose in a row, even Yoshihiro Akiyama is still on the roster and he has lost four in a row now. Or maybe the Garcia treatment where your fighting style entertains the fans more than enough to keep your contract safe regardless how many L's you have received in a row.

But UFC/Zuffa's most recent contract policy seems to be leaning more towards keeping every fighter rather than cutting them. When was the last time you've heard of a fighter being cut off of one/two losses? Hell, have you even heard of a fighter being cut since the Damarques Johnson/Rich Attonito story?

Dave Herman has lost 3 fights in a row, all finishes and looked terrible in his last outing. And the only fight he's won in the octagon is a fight he was nearly stopped himself.

Others that have lost their last 3: Kyle Kingsbury, Fabio Maldonado, Alessio Sakara, 'Bang' Ludwig, 'Kid' Yamamoto, Tiequan Zhang, Jared Papazian etc.

This is a great sign for things to come in my opinion. Many guys used to be cut coming off of two losses regardless if you was exciting or not, some guys even only one loss.

But now a days, since the new divisions have been put in place in the UFC, it's very rarely a fighter is cut. Even unknown fighters who have lost two in a row right now have been given passses, when in the past, it was almost certain that you was getting cut off of one or two losses. Very rarely was a fighter staying after two straight losses, here's some guys who have lost two in a row and are still on the roster: Keith Wisniewski, David Mitchell, Papy Abedi, Kenny Robertson, Nick Penner, Chad Griggs, Shane Del Rosario, Christian Morecraft, John Cofer, Mitch Clarke, Joey Gambino, Byron Bloodworth etc.

I like this new ruling they have in place here. It gives fighters they have on the roster much more of a chance to show what they are really worth and made out of. And even if you have octagon jitters in your debut, you can make up for it in your next two fights without the fear of being cut. Mind you, the UFC can cut a fighter at any time, even coming off of a win but this is quality of the UFC not to cut fighters on losing streaks anymore or at least as much as they did.

What also begs the question in what exactly is going on here? They're signing fighters left and right. Strikeforce fighters all coming over, woman's fighters, BW, FLW, FW fighters all being signed. Prospects from all over the world are currently coming over. Seems to me like they have something massive in the works here that they aren't telling us about. Their roster is getting bigger and bigger and they aren't trimming it down in the mean time.

Weekly night fights in 2014 guys? Is that what they're aiming for? I think so.

 

Yes, I think their main goal is to drown the comp. When there's an event every week no other org can get off the ground. Zuffa 4eva!

 

i think they should just stack ppvs and stop doing fuel and all that stuff

 

New Monday night war against WWE? Interesting....

 

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed, as long as they could keep the quality of the cards up. As a fan of MMA, the more the better.

 

extremely misleading title. You made it seem like the Ufc had stated this rather than it being your opinion that this is their goal.

 

Then people can ask with confidence.... `do you train ufc?`

 

I agree.

 

I'm with ya, but it wouldn't make sense for the UFC from a $ standpoint.

I wouldn't mind like 10 fairly stacked PPVs a year and 5 or 6 free shows either on Fuel or FOX. I miss the days when staying in for a UFC card felt like a can't-miss event.

 

Well, if you look at the history of the UFC, the amount of acceptable losses has been going up steadily over the last decade or so.
Right before teh Zuffa buyout, people were getting cut for one loss.
Around UFC 60ish people were still regularly getting cut for 2 straight losses.
Then, for a long time the buying public accepted 3 losses as they acceptable max
Finally, we're starting to see a decent amount of people get kept around for 4 losses, and 3 losses is no longer a death sentence.
I hope that eventually, the UFC will be it's own self sustaining sports organization, maybe like, 3 or 4 feeder orgs across America and a few in other countries as well that actually have a UFC clause in their contract e.g. Win 5 fights in this org and you get to fight in the UFC. This way all the best fighters and prospects will be under one organization, we'll never have to argue about who could beat who in each organization, because the UFC has all of them. The UFC would then be able to do what the annoying multitude of boxing organizations does all on their, putting on an event every week because of reliable feeder orgs, and keeping journeyman to have exciting fights and build up prospects.

 

Keep the quality up?


We got fed a ton of rematches and pointless fights last year.


I want to see less cards/ higher quality and PPVs worth paying for.

 

Not enough fighters

 

Well the UFC might be planning on leaving the PPV model as a whole to become entirely aired on free TV, by gradually growing their audience through free, live events (especially the Fox cards). That way, their fanbase will grow (they'll lose a bit of money short-term), and long-term they will have more customers.

I know when the UFC had stuff like the Rampage vs. Henderson card that made a lot of my friends into legitimate UFC fans.

With the quality of fighters consistently rising, we're now seeing developmental guys on Facebook cards who could have won some of the early UFC tournaments. There's what, something like 400+ Zuffa-signed fighters (counting some of the loaned Invicta fighters and the remaining Strikeforce fighters), so there's certainly enough.

420 (my estimate of how many fighters we'll have) divided by 12 (the desired number of fights per event) is exactly 35 (the number of events). Seeing as how many fighters (outside of the top 10 of each division) fight about 3-4 times per year on average (with some fighting as many as 5 or sometimes 6 times a year), that number goes significantly up (with good health; PLEASE NO BIG NAME INJURIES THIS YEAR!).

 

ditto

 

i think this is where ufc has shined and boxing has failed. developing new stars, through tuf,fox, and fx fights and boxing has failed.

 

I would love it if there was a new card every week, but I don't think they're ready to do that yet without hurting quality a lot. Hopefully some day though.

 

Fuck yeah that would be sweet. And i have no problem with "watered down cards" as long ad they are free. Hell, i watch sfl and that is some low quality ufc 1 type stuff.

 

Dam if a new card happened every week id be happy. I dont think they are very close to that though.

 

Sounds good in theory. For me however i've found the more shows are being put on per year the less i'm watching and caring about mma *shrug*

 

Besides the misleading thread title, the subject is good. I've been surfing on the same idea for a while now. Would love to watch 3 or 4 low profile fights every week. I think that would be a nice way to throw more lights upon low-tier fighters and divisions.


Between the three or even four matchs they could put:

At least one match between bantam or flyweights. It would probably guarantee a technical bout with fast paced action.

And the last fight of the night could be between two low-tiers in the heavyweight division. This way they could attract more casuals and we would have a very high chance of secure at least a finish along the night.