Thoughts on Ariel's new ESPN show?

[Mob69]

Ariel has been doing his new show on ESPN for a couple of months now, so I think we can get a sense of how things are going. What do you make of it?

Personally I don't like it as much. The interviews are often shorter and there is little general discussion. The fact that it is only live on Twitter and not on YouTube until the following day means the less people catch it live, and so it doesn't capture the same attention. The presentation isn't as good (the intro music is terrible, the lighting on the set is too dark, and for some reason the size of the table bothers me - it's too small, creating the impression that they shoved Ariel in a broom closet). They even bleep out the swearing. When the show is eventually posted on YouTube, it is broken down into individual interviews so you have to keep clicking on the next video and can't watch the whole show. The New York Ric section of the show isn't live even on Twitter.

There are quite a few complaints in the YouTube comments here:



At 27 minutes, Ariel addresses some of the complaints and seems a little sensitive.

He even claims that the show might be 'dead' if not for being broadcast on Twitter. That seems odd to me. New York Ric expanded on it and said that not many people understand that if not for the deal to broadcast on Twitter, the show wouldn't have continued. I don't know what that means. Perhaps ESPN recruited Helwani primarily for pre-fight and post-fight stuff, rather than for his show? And they only agreed to keep it going after making a deal with Twitter to broadcast it. If true - wow.

Helwani even implies that he would like to cover other sports....

Ariel obviously made the sensible decision for himself by going to ESPN, but it would be difficult to argue that the show is as accessible for fans, or as enjoyable, as it used to be. Maybe it will improve in the future. Meanwhile MMA Fighting.com isn't exactly rocking and rolling either. Luke Thomas isn't as good on the MMA Hour, and he gave up his Live Chat long form discussion which is now run by Raimondi and al-Shatti. I find it borderline unwatchable. Don't break up a winning team.

 

[Credo]

Magical!

 

[Toizumi]

Apart from the set, Ariel’s show is still quality, but difficult to find/watch, as it is broken up in sections and youtube autoplay doesnt always follow the show’s timeline.

MMA Beat and MMA Hour are barely watchable now.. Luke is not a great host, his guests are generally underwhelming and the Beat panel is below standards without Ariel and Jeff. New guy and Danny are bad

 

[Mob69]

Apart from the set, Ariel’s show is still quality, but difficult to find/watch, as it is broken up in sections and youtube autoplay doesnt always follow the show’s timeline.

MMA Beat and MMA Hour are barely watchable now.. Luke is not a great host, his guests are generally underwhelming and the Beat panel is below standards without Ariel and Jeff. New guy and Danny are bad

I couldn't stand Jeff, but Danny is terrible too. He knows nothing.

 

[Kakarotto]

Ariel's show just feels very cheap and gimmicky now. Not a fan.

MMA Beat & Hour have gone down hill big time. Luke Thomas, absolutely sucks. They need Shaun Al-Shati and Chuck to take over.

 

[DoctorNick]

I've never watched any of his stuff, because I dislike the TMZ style he loves to use.

 

[Joohnmatrix]

Haven't watched it once and found myself not missing Ariel at all after watching his previous show for years.

 

[Mob69]

Haven't watched it once and found myself not missing Ariel at all after watching his previous show for years.

Ouch!

 

[cann]

Ariel's show just feels very cheap and gimmicky now. Not a fan.

MMA Beat & Hour have gone down hill big time. Luke Thomas, absolutely sucks. They need Shaun Al-Shati and Chuck to take over.

Agree, I was trying to listen to the MMA hour today with Luke Thomas and he was yelling for a good portion of the video/podcast; I had to skip those parts and just get to the interviews I wanted to see instead.
If he would stop yelling during his podcast I'd be more inclined to watch more of it perhaps. Sometimes I don't mind listening to him, but at other times something about the way he talks rubs me the wrong way, something about his attitude not sure what it is.

For Ariel's show I can never find where its airing. When it was on youtube it was easy to find and play live. On twitter its hard to rewind or use, the timestamps for the interviews aren't there, etc. Twitter just has a really bad video player, it will even sometimes pause when I minimize the window which is super annoying also. I have to wait until the next day for ESPN to chop it up on their youtube account to watch it, but it has missing segments quite often.

OP - I agree with you completely.

 

[SpiderCrawl]

Never seen it and never will, not overly interested in MMA media, full of soy bois.

 

[Deleted member 510653]

"New York Rick" is a man bun soy boy hipster dink and only nerds listen to Helwani on a usual basis, that's my thoughts on it.

 

[fortheo]

Seems like a blander, watered down, less accessible version of his original show.

 

[LouisBolanos]

I suspect a lot of hardcores will be losing interest because 1. it's losing its edge and 2. nobody wants to stream it on the piece of shit Twitter platform, and few casuals will pick it up because it's not a show intended for casuals.

I also feel Ariel is getting extra cocky these days because he feels he's part of the big leagues, and he's starting to throw more shade at others, yesterday he said feels disrespected when people call his "multimedia experience" a podcast, lol. It's ironic he keeps calling UFC Unfiltered "UFC Filtered" because it's "a corporate show when his new ESPN show which beeps every FUCK and SHIT is 10x more corporate.

However, he did say his move to ESPN was so he could try something new, and hinted at doing new sports, which basically confirms what many have speculated: he's using the ESPN opportunity to break into other, more mainstream sports, because deep down he has never been a true combat sports fan, he was pretty much forced into MMA because it was the only thing available to him at the time.

 

[YellowBanenoo]

I'm not interested in anything that isn't on youtube.

 

[THATxGUY]

I got to admit I’ve missed a few episodes of the ESPN version by choice as I don’t enjoy it as much. I can’t even give a reason why but I just zoned out.

I actually like the MMA hour with like Thomas. The fan interaction is good and I don’t agree with some of his outlook on MMA at least he explains his views when he rants ...

Sometimes Ariel just goes way too fan boy, like when he had a go at the fans n fighters gloating over the james gallagher loss. Then had him on the show to tell him in person how amazing he was taking the loss... it’s just too much

 

[Willek]

"New York Rick" is a man bun soy boy hipster dink.

 

[Scurvydawg]

It is like they are trying to hide him away on the deep dark bowels of the net now. MMAHour I could watch on the site, On youtube or even listen on various podcast audio stream sites. This I gotta go to twitter for and any stuff uploaded to youtube is buried away behind tons of random espn sporting clips.. The twitter vid sucks on my phone to. Hard to listen at work. Its always lagging out .

After trying to listen to Luke Thomas chew and burp his way through lousy MMA hour interviews with the B-rate guests , I appreciate Ariel more and wish they would just make it more accessible. Was Glad to see they finally added a playlist in the espn youtube channel but they only got small portions of only half his episodes. Fucking dorks.

 

[ANIM4L]

not feeling it. seems like its too much of a hassle to tune into.

 

[CptJacuzzi]

it's whatever, I agree the old show had more of a homely feeling to it. Mostly happy for Ariel, always enjoy his questions and involvement in the sport so if this show makes more money than good for him. I don't get all this espn+ bullshit though so I don't get to watch alot of ariel and the bad guy or the post fight show.

Anyone watch the show now that Luke Thomas took over? personally his stuff is usually the last, can't stand the dad humor/muh real madrid smug man. Luke's only good show is the post-fight specials when all he does is talk about the fight.

 

[ANIM4L]

it's whatever, I agree the old show had more of a homely feeling to it. Mostly happy for Ariel, always enjoy his questions and involvement in the sport so if this show makes more money than good for him. I don't get all this espn+ bullshit though so I don't get to watch alot of ariel and the bad guy or the post fight show.

Anyone watch the show now that Luke Thomas took over? personally his stuff is usually the last I look at.

I watched the link someone posted on here of today's show. Its got a good format and Luke is bringing in interesting people, but his style of interviewing needs work. If he toned it down and made the show less about him and his thoughts it would be better. To me anyway.