By EconMatters
The Big Fight Weekend
This Saturday December 12th the UFC will have their closest thing to a Super fight in the stellar matchup between Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This fight should set all kinds of UFC pay per view records as fight fans have awaited this matchup for a long time. And frankly now that college football has winded down, there isn`t a lot of sports competing for these sports dollars over the weekend.
This better be a great fight, and not a total dud because the UFC is running a little thin on credibility after their foray into women`s mixed martial arts with the hype machine that was Ronda Rousey. As she became just the latest example of the UFC Promotion machine getting a little ahead of its fighter`s capabilities and experience level.
The Talent Gap
This is part of the problem that the UFC faces is that in order to truly have a high level of mixed martial arts fighting skills it takes at least 10 years of training, even for a talented athlete to reach the mastery level. There just aren`t that many people who will be able to subsidize their living standard for at least ten years that it takes to gain this type of advanced fighting skillset.
For example, professional football has junior high, high school, and college training programs doing all the prep work training, and then they weed out the best, and have plenty of qualified candidates to choose from to run their business model. The same for basketball, baseball and even soccer. Because these sports are supported and developed in the education curriculum as part of a well-rounded educational program, there are lots of potential employees being developed by the professional sports leagues at no cost.
Developmental Programs
The UFC has had to rely on college wrestling programs, private Jiu Jitsu gyms, and some Karate clubs for their ‘subsidized’ athlete pool. And hope like heck they can get enough of these individuals to master some boxing, and the other disciples of the mixed martial arts game. But the UFC runs into a sheer numbers issue, as most of the other sports developmental programs not only take athletes away from these much smaller niche hobby sports endeavors for the youth. But also the UFC has such a small athlete pool to begin with, that once in any athletic sport where the majority are weeded out who just aren`t athletic enough, or have the mental makeup, persistence level and dedication to develop high level skills required to reach an elite level of performance. The UFC is basically left with a very limited number of fighters who are worth spending money on, and make for compelling “must-see” entertainment. And usually the capable interesting fighters are not in the same weight class because there are just so few to begin with here with this supply chain model.
Some Progress Made
The UFC has known about this problem, and they anticipated with the ‘mainstreaming’ of the sport in getting a national television contract with Fox, and getting more sponsorship from corporate advertisers that the fighters would come up through the ranks. But this is where the miscalculation came in by the UFC. It takes at least 10 years to actually master multiple martial arts disciplines, and there just aren`t that many candidates who will sacrifice 10 years of making no money for a sport where they routinely get hit in the face or have some malodourous person lay on them on top of a dirty mat for 2 hours a day. In high School you at least get a nice letter jacket that impresses the ladies for your ineffectual efforts at playing football, baseball and basketball.
The UFC is left with the occasional college wrestler who can learn how to box at a novice level, an Olympic Judo competitor who can learn some basic wrestling and kick-boxing moves, or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu students who can learn some boxing and wrestling skills. But even these fighters are not complete mixed martial arts fighters but rather have one good skill set, and the other skill sets necessary for legitimate mixed martial art`s fighting are at the novice to intermediate level at best.
5 Fighters at Master`s Skill Level
As a result the UFC has basically had about 5 guys who could actually fight as a true mixed martial artist and were talented athletes at a commensurate professional advanced level on their fighting roster at any given time. This makes it hard to put actual high level watchable shows on pay per view multiple times a year, let alone several times a month like the UFC tries to do without completely alienating your fans with subpar shows of overhyped events that are basically watered down fighting club events.
Whenever you have fighters with less than 3 fights fighting on main events like Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey, and over the hill boxers like James Toney you know there is a talent issue in the sport. Can you imagine putting in a quarterback to read modern NFL defensive coverages with such little preparation and years of experience? The UFC has basically devolved into the modern day equivalent of the Ringling Brother`s circus show promoting the latest freak show in the ring. We will see if Conor McGregor can actually fight this Saturday, and the Aldo – McGregor fight ends up meeting considerable expectations by fans.
Reinvest Profits in the Business – Like Amazon
However, until the UFC finds a way to reinvest their profits in developing fighters for the future, in some sort of amateur training program they are going to continue to tread water as an organization competing for the sports entertainment dollar. Maybe work with high school sports programs to have basic mixed martial arts clubs as alternatives for youths in lieu of football, basketball, baseball, track, golf, swimming, gymnastics, tennis and soccer. Or alternatively provide yearly stipends to have fighters on the roster in a developmental program like the minor leagues in baseball.
Legitimate Sport or Professional Wrestling?
Alternatively, they can hope that the fight fans will continue to purchase expensive pay per view events for overhyped fighters who lack the requisite training and skillset of the other sports leagues. Can you imagine if Tom Brady had only 10 starts in his entire football training life before playing in the Super bowl? The UFC is basically a flawed product right now, which relies upon hype, and an incompetent uncritical sports media accomplice in promoting underqualified participants as professionally qualified athletes with advanced mixed martial arts skillsets. In the glory days of boxing, which is the most common comparison sport, fighters had 5-10 years of amateur boxing training, at least 20 professional fights gradually building up there skillset, and then they worked their way into title fight contention.
Overhyping is not Good Branding
The UFC for the most part is one giant hype machine, promoting overhyped fights with fighters who are inadequately prepared, often not even meeting the 10,000 hours threshold of mixed martial arts training, let alone actually being gifted to any high degree in the sport. In the past, athletes tried to compensate for lack of skill by taking performance enhancing drugs (steroids, Hgh, etc.), dropping 20 plus pounds of water weight right before the fight (weight-cutting cans), and any other means available like laying on an opponent for 15 minutes due to only being able to wrestle or having a limited mixed martial arts toolkit.
Develop a Roster of 100 High Level Fighters: Business/Fighter Developmental Plan Required
We have written in the past about the progress of the sport, but in going after the almighty dollar in the short term, the UFC has failed to build a solid foundation going forward for its future. As of right now, despite the best fight this Saturday in years, the product is reaching a stagnation standpoint. It hasn`t evolved or taken near advantage of its opportunity as we would have anticipated given the uptick of a national television contract with Fox Sports, and the multitude of corporate sponsorships that have come the UFC`s way the last 3 years.
In short, if the UFC was a stock we would be shorting it right into the Aldo-McGregor spike this weekend. The UFC is going to have to make some changes if they are going to take their sport to the next level; promoting women fighters in bikinis can only fool the sports buying public for so long. Unless they want to remain a freak show niche ‘sport’ like professional wrestling with its declining pay per views, they better formulate a plan to develop a roster of 100 fighters who are truly compelling to watch from an overall athletic and advanced skill standpoint – a roster of fighters who are actually competent well rounded Mixed Martial Artists.
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And the answer is... 13 seconds of a fight.
those were women for real?
Coulda fooled me.
Yeah it ususally takes a few decades before the brain damage manifests.
Look at Ali, and the pro football players. Many other athlets are learning this.
James Jones and McGregor get my attention, I try to watch those fights. UFC is prolly too rough for a big mainstream following.
UFC has had this problem for a long time. Fighters at this level just do not have long careers. Even if a fighter is still technically healthy after 3 years he will have slowed down just enough that he can't be a top contender anymore. Just look at former greats like Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, and Rich Franklin. As soon as they lost their titles they were never in any real contention to get them back. Rich Franklin was a prime example. Once Anderson Silva beat him senseless he pretty much retired. So here you are spending millions hyping someone like Franklin, and as soon as he loses all of your marketing investments are a complete loss.
For a while UFC tried to mask this by simply putting those former champions in undercard fights. This ended up being a terrible idea. Watching Tito Ortiz not win a title is boring. Watching Tito Ortiz not win an undercard match that means nothing is even more boring. You think people are going to buy tickets and PPVs to see Rhonda Rousey's weepy, self righteous ass in an undercard fight? She's yesterday's headline and is a dead end for UFC in the future.
UFC needs to seriously reduce the number of events they have. One PPV per month plus any free specials (usually at least one or two) during the month eats up your talent like a Land Whale at Golden Corral. It wont solve all of the problems, but it will seriously reduce the talent burn rate. Plus it would make PPVs something special again.
so... whats the agenda here?
>>>>>Can you imagine if Tom Brady had only 10 starts in his entire football training life before playing in the Super bowl? <<<<
That is pretty much how many starts Tom Brady had when he was in his first Stupid Bowl. He took over for an injured Drew Bedsoe and took the Patriots into the playoffs only to suffer an injury himself before the AFC championship game.
Bledsoe won that playoff game and Brady was back in the huddle for the Stupid Bowl.
It would help to do a little research before writing an article.
Also the UFC had great fights over the years where fighters were advanced in only one discipline.
This will be the fight I'll have to hear about at Christmas from my stepson the plumber. Dumb as a fucking rock, but he's family so we humor him so we can get a discount.
Standard Disclaimer: Even my wife calls him a nigger.
The first few UFC's where really great with no weight classes or gloves and very limited restrictions on the fighters. UFC as it is now is just a glorified version WWE trash-talking stupidity with actual punches; nothing more than bar fights in a ring.
I agree. The implementation of rounds, gloves, weight classes, scorecards, and standing the fighters back up are all parts that that I don't like.
Once a fight is started, it should be won by KO or submission - period. The first few UFCs were awesome - as were the Vale Tudo Japan and Pride fights around the Rickson era.
I'm thinking a type of street kendo butwith baseball bats the ptotectivegear would have to be thought out quite well. I've been working on the design for a minimal protection suit. while basically you have two or three guys swinging real bats end the loser wontfight againfor six months but will live.
I was wondering when the dwarves would be coming up in brutal hand-to-hand?
UFC has run its course from its humble first contest in Denver in 1995
The real fighting will be in the streets soon so stay tuned to YouTube
Vitaly Minakov UFC.TV Dec 11 Moskva
http://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/events/36728-fight-nights-battle-20
http://fightnights.ru/fn20/
Bollocks.
MMA is wrestling with punches, period. Most martial artists understand that they're not going to make money in MMA and aren't willing to risk permanent injury and early onset arthiritis for UFC.
Conor McGregor is the Ali of the UFC. Swagger with smack talking and some above average skills. While the UFC does hype, it hypes to sell and make money. I doubt we will ever see MMA as an Olympic support. You are right, the UFC brand will become worn if talent is not created.
I personally do not like it when the fight introductions are similar to boxing. Pro boxing when comparied to the UFC is boring. The boxing story lines are tiresome; fought his way out of the projects while mom was a crack smoking whore. Okay, that moved me the first 100 times, now, it is like "who cares" I've been desensitized. How about a Harvard grad school student fighting to prove he is not a cry bully.
MMA is heading down the Pro Boxing path; who will be the Don King of the UFC? Dana ain't got the hair and seriously needs to be slapped around a couple of rounds. At the end of the slapping around, I'd like to see an arm-bar to submission. No break, just serious joint paint.
As a 2nd degree black belt and former MA instructor and want-to-be MMA figher, the fight is never about the other guy. It is mastering yourself. MA is about self-discpline. Pain is a small tool in the process. Working toward something is the biggest tool (advance belt, a fight, a new skill, more endurance). I have arthirtis in both elbows (probably from being overextended too many times in training), yet I still train. Not to fight, but because I enjoy overcoming. Small victory but it makes life worth living.
Who cares?....bring back the colloseum and throw the politicians and lawyers in with the lions and a gladius.....THAT i'd pay to see....this MMA is whatever...kinda boring as fuck...i mean better than boxing, but boxing is more boring to watch than fucking golf!
GSP was a phenominal fighter but he was never right after serra damn-near took his head off with that kick. also, i always kinda felt he was afraid to fight anderson silva in his prime. anderson looked MUCH better at light heavy and always looked WAY too thin when he fought at middle. GSP wouldn't come-up in weight class to fight him and anderson was like "are u fucking kidding me" to the notion of dropping another 15 pounds from middle.
I don't know what kick you are talking about. Serra put GSP on queer street with an overhand right hand when GSP changed levels, then followed up with an amazing series of punches. I was a sad sad man when my guy GSP lost that night, and credit to Serra for rising to the occasion in spectacular fashion, but I don't recall any Serra kicks, with all due respect. (I recall Condit knocking him down in the 3rd with a left kick. Is that the one?)
i hope aldo kicks his fucking teeth in. im all for being nutz, pumping-up a fight, blah-blah-blah ... but what mcgregor did at the press conference was flat-out disrespectful when he grabbed aldo's belt and threw it over his shoulder. any real fighter knows theres only 1 way/reason you EVER take another mans belt & throw it over ur shoulder & THAT ain't it. kudos to aldo for being restrained. he musta been thinking "since i can't do anything here, im gonna just kick ur fucking ass in the cage." IMO a guy like mcgregor does some stupid shit like that because in a real fight, he doesn't know if he can win which is different then when someone says they are scared or every fight they THINK they can lose. mcgregor is an unbelievable fighter but his cockiness is NOT confidence and im hoping he gets either blasted out cold or submitted - no scorecards at the end of 5 for this one.
GSP took on all US top wrestlers like Matt Hughes and Josh Koschek and except for his first loss to his hero Hughes, took on all comers like a champ. Oh and GSP never took wrestling in school.
Yes. GSP was a treasure, and the UFC hasn't been the same in the last 2 years since he left. I hope he stays away and has a long and happy life with his faculties intact.
"after their foray into women`s mixed martial arts with the hype machine that was Ronda Rousey. As she became just the latest example of the UFC Promotion machine getting a little ahead of its fighter`s capabilities and experience level."
WTF are you talking about? Does a fighter have to be "unbeatable" to be seen as legit? Then we should questioning the quality of the challengers. Just because Rousey got beat doesn't mean she lacks "experience" or is part of a "hype machine."
Edit: FWIW - IMHO UFC was better before the rule changes when it was essentially a single elimination Vale Tudo match.
Pay Per View and Corporate greed are killing UFC and boxing.
When I want to watch UFC I go to Myp2p.eu and watch for free....
UFC turned all wus after Hoyce Gracie choked out Dan Severn then almost died choking out that hawiian dude with the tats. At least that is how I remember it. Which is probably no where near what actually happened.
I loved the original UFC before all the rules that made it as boring as your average vanilla boxing match. I mean, watching a 200lb Hinkley open-palm strike a 600lb sumo wrestler was what UFC was all about. Granted, the company pretty much went bankrupt once all the "fighters" figured out their strip mall dojo fighting tecniques weren't actually combat worthy and they had no new fighters; but damn it was a fun ride while it lasted.
Yes indeed it was fun. I remember showing my old man a tape of the Gracie/Severn fight (the first UFC?) and he swore off boxing after that.
I recall that fight with the open palm BLAM to the sumo guy. Size did not matter. Big guy went DOWN baby.
Was that the same night where the Korean dude took like 50 hard punches to the nuts and kept going? The only things illegal were biting, fingers in the eye and talking about the other guys Momma. I think.
I still cringe when I remember that guy taking those repeated nut punches. He was a tough bastard.
The Gracie/Severn fight was about 18 mins of boredom, for anyone but a jiu-jitsu afficionado, than suddenly Severn was in the triangle and tapping out. If you blinked you missed it. Amazing victory, but hard to see it as mainstream entertainment. That's why this stuff has always gone over well in Japan, where the average punter puts in the effort to really understand what's going on.
That said, 5 day cricket matches have always been a big pull in Australia. The usual result is a draw. Putin might appreciate that.
Is Rousey a legit fighter? Yes. Is Rogan thoroughly embarassed about his "once in a generation" promo? Yes.
Joe Rogan has the mental faculties of a tumbleweed. Watching his radio show/podcast is pretty embarrassing. He proudly displays his ignorance of everything and derides anyone and everything about subjects he knows nothing about. Case in point, he is one of those people that genuinely believes that pro-wrestling fans still think "rasslin'" is real.
Last thing I want to see is a chick fight.
I quit watching UFC a few years ago.
It started to get the stinch of pro boxing and pro wrestling thrown in a blender and left out in a hot Vegas sun for a week in the middle of August.
It was even better when they weren't on at all...