UFC 79

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I’m a little ambivalent about the whole UFC popularity thing. On the one hand, I would prefer that they put together fights between top contenders and solid fight cards (not saying they don’t, just that the potential is there to have more quality fights per card.) On the other hand, I think about the strides the sport has taken over the past 3 years or so.

Up until BJ Penn, I couldn’t get UFC PPVs over here [in Hawaii.] Pride on PPV was unheard of (over here) up until a couple years ago. Most MMA that I watched I got thru DVDs, some bootlegged with terrible quality (the Japan stuff.)

Now there’s a ton of events being televised across the nation, with multi-billionaires backing upstart promotions. Also, MMA has moved into the Showtime market, HDNet is coming together, the IFL is still standing, and the UFC shows a ton of fights on Spike for free including the Jackson-Henderson card. Free MMA on cable? Dude, if you’ve been following the sport for any amount of time you have to realize how big of a leap that was.

I think the growth of MMA has been a good thing in the US market, and no one can claim more responsibility for that than the UFC-despite their seemingly WWE style of marketing which I deplore, you have to give credit where credit is due.

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[quote]Damici wrote:
I’m starting to think the UFC just tends to put together largely piss-poor cards the great majority of the time. Often it’s just the main event and maybe the fight right under it that are of any interest at all. The organization has such a stellar overall lineup right now that I would think they should be able to put on cards where, say, at LEAST 4 out of the 6 fights are not just good but GREAT, STELLAR fights among really interesting fighters.

I also think that a lot of the fighters just fight far less frequently than they’re able to, and that if many of them fought, say, 2 additional times per year (beyond what they’re doing now), it would help the UFC put on more interesting cards.

I know I don’t know the logistics of every single situation (who’s injured, whose contract just expired, etc.), but they seem to do a lot (WAY too much) of “saving” fighters for some bigger, interesting fight that’s set to happen many months away. (And sometimes THAT fight then ends up getting blown apart for some reason – pre-fight injury, etc.).

I know this is TOTALLY hypothetical, and that there are logistics that preclude this SPECIFIC example, but just for the sake of argument, every card should be as interesting as, say, this:

Sylvia vs. Nog
Liddell vs. Shogun
Arlovski vs. Gonzaga
A. Silva vs. Henderson
GSP vs. Serra
Gomi vs. Penn

  • 1 or 2 undercard bouts with lesser-knowns

I know some people might say, “But then they’ll blow their whole wad in one night!” I would argue that the organization STILL has enough top talent to put on an equally interesting card 2 months later, and to continue to do so continually, if they work the combinations and permutations right (and have the top fighters fight more than just 2 or 3 times per year).

Am I nuts?

[/quote]

Well, Pride used to do that. I sure am glad the UFC buy-out was great for the fans.(sarcasm) Then again, maybe that’s why Pride was having financial issues in the end, too many shows per year and all the cool production effects. Still, it’s going to have to be a pretty mind-blowing card for me to shell out $40 know I will see 4 fights.