Everything wrong can be traced back to the FOX deal.

[TheWhiteKnight]

Man, MMA fans love looking back on the past with rose tinted goggles.

Were the cards that better back then? Really? Even when they were months apart?

You know what I think a BIG difference is these days... we can watch the prelims. I remember a few years ago, when you'd NEVER be able to watch the prelims. There was literally no way to do it... apart from buying the event DVD a few months later or hoping for a lot of finishes so they could slot in a good prelim fight.

The absence of the prelims created the illusion of a higher quality product, but really, all the shitty no name fighters were still there... you just didn't see them.

People are also VERY quick to forget MMA/UFC successes... like 2013.

That year was fucking BANANAS. It was awesome. So many great fights it was hard to keep track. They had a run of PPV main events that were just insane:

164 - Pettis v Henderson
165 - Jones v Gus
166 - Cain v JDS 3
167 - GSP v Hendricks
168 - Weidman v Silva 2

And they were pretty stacked under cards too. I remember enjoying all those fights and cards immensely. And let's not forget that year was full of other classic fights/events:

Aldo v Edgar
Hunt v Bigfoot
Weidman v Silva 1
UFC 160 - Cain v Bigfoot (great card overall)
Silva v Stann
TRTor headkicking everyone.

It was a great fucking year... and it was last year.

But no.

The UFC is dying/oversaturated/watered down/corrupt/full of fighters no one likes/women/manlets and on and on and on and on.

Fucking MMA fans don't know how good they've got it. It could be better, sure, but in my opinion, MMA has never, ever been better than it was in 2013 and the only reason 2014 wasn't the same is because of the fucking injury bug (which also ruined 2012).

Could you be a more obvious shill?

PPV and TV ratings are in the toilet compared to the Spike days. That's not an opinion; its a fact.

 

[rocketskates]

I think the problem with Fox is that they push the UFC to put on a number of free cards a year and with injuries and such this creates some very watered down cards. I never thought that I would say that there are too many free fights but I miss the one ppv a month and one free card a month or every other month format. Cards were better and the buildup to the event was always fun.

 

[Lepo Lepo]

I always liked Spike, I watched my first event Anderson vs Irvin on there. Didn't even know it was on to compete against Affliction(?) Even though Fox is a much bigger, legit channel, I prefer Spike.

 

[INTERL0PER]

Could you be a more obvious shill?

PPV and TV ratings are in the toilet compared to the Spike days. That's not an opinion; its a fact.

Right. I'm a "shill"

Here's something you naysayers never seem to acknowledge; the decline in PPV is across the board, not just UFC. WWE and boxing have both suffered huge losses in PPV numbers. Is that due to waning popularity? Or is perhaps that the PPV model itself is becoming outdated?

I think the likely culprit is the consistent rise of the internet. Illegal streams, torrents etc are far more common place and far more effective than ever before and continue to eat in to the profits of the music industry, the film industry, the gaming industry. Everyone's affected by it, not just the UFC. These days, more than ever before, people expect to be able to access content for free and are much less willing to pay for it.

The other thing people seem to ignore... there's a whole other world out there. Yes, MMA ratings may be down in the USA, but it's gaining in popularity all over the world. For example, I can guarantee more people watch the UFC/MMA in Ireland than ever before. MMA had a boom of popularity in the USA, and it was a fad for a while. That bubble has burst, yes, so the popularity has evened out, but a plateau in popularity does not mean it's dying. Every sport goes through something similar. Boxing was MASSIVE in the 90s with Lennox, Tyson, Holyfield etc. Then it's popularity waned when the stars disappeared... until Floyd raised his head and started selling insane amounts of PPV. MMA will be the same. It's popularity will rise and fall, but now it's so entrenched that I can't see it going anywhere any time soon (barring something crazy like a death in the octagon or something like that).

Think about this too... how have the ticket sales for UFC events been? Pretty solid from what I can tell. If the UFC was truly declining in popularity, wouldn't the UFC's ticket sales have been dropping dramatically too? As far as I'm aware, that hasn't been the case. I follow the sport as closely as anyone, and from what I can tell, they've been selling tickets just as well as they always have.

Right now, the UFC has more fighters, more divisions and more events, in more countries, than ever before. They've acquired major sponsorship from large corporations (Reebok being the obvious example) and are being played regularly on one of the largest sports channels on the planet... and yet, apparently, "The UFC is dying!!"

Stop think everyone who disagrees with you is a shill. It's lazy thinking and doing you no good. Come up with real opinions and arguments. It's more interesting for the rest of us.

 

[Coffee79]

Right. I'm a "shill"

Here's something you naysayers never seem to acknowledge; the decline in PPV is across the board, not just UFC. WWE and boxing have both suffered huge losses in PPV numbers. Is that due to waning popularity? Or is perhaps that the PPV model itself is becoming outdated?

I think the likely culprit is the consistent rise of the internet. Illegal streams, torrents etc are far more common place and far more effective than ever before and continue to eat in to the profits of the music industry, the film industry, the gaming industry. Everyone's affected by it, not just the UFC. These days, more than ever before, people expect to be able to access content for free and are much less willing to pay for it.

The other thing people seem to ignore... there's a whole other world out there. Yes, MMA ratings may be down in the USA, but it's gaining in popularity all over the world.[/] For example, I can guarantee more people watch the UFC/MMA in Ireland than ever before. MMA had a boom of popularity in the USA, and it was a fad for a while. That bubble has burst, yes, so the popularity has evened out, but a plateau in popularity does not mean it's dying. Every sport goes through something similar. Boxing was MASSIVE in the 90s with Lennox, Tyson, Holyfield etc. Then it's popularity waned when the stars disappeared... until Floyd raised his head and started selling insane amounts of PPV. MMA will be the same. It's popularity will rise and fall, but now it's so entrenched that I can't see it going anywhere any time soon (barring something crazy like a death in the octagon or something like that).

Think about this too... how have the ticket sales for UFC events been? Pretty solid from what I can tell. If the UFC was truly declining in popularity, wouldn't the UFC's ticket sales have been dropping dramatically too? As far as I'm aware, that hasn't been the case. I follow the sport as closely as anyone, and from what I can tell, they've been selling tickets just as well as they always have.

Right now, the UFC has more fighters, more divisions and more events, in more countries, than ever before. They've acquired major sponsorship from large corporations (Reebok being the obvious example) and are being played regularly on one of the largest sports channels on the planet... and yet, apparently, "The UFC is dying!!"

Stop think everyone who disagrees with you is a shill. It's lazy thinking and doing you no good. Come up with real opinions and arguments. It's more interesting for the rest of us.

Why should I or any other North American fan care if the UFC grows popular in other markets if our quality suffers here for it ? The UFC that we made popular in the US has abandoned us.

 

[xBarnmuckerx]

Why should I or any other North American fan care if the UFC grows popular in other markets if our quality suffers here for it ? The UFC that we made popular in the US has abandoned us.

Are you trolling or just an idiot?

 

[trane]

Yea people thought Fox could take the sport to the next level but it has only accelerated the decline

 

[Thuckey]

In Canada it really sucks, casuals only knew UFC from UFC Unleashed on Spike TV, and now we don't even get prelims or free cards anywhere on satellite TV. WTF? As a huge mma fan, I have trouble even finding a damn event to watch and I either get frustrated and just download it the next day or stream something that was supposed to be FREE anyways. A lot of my friends were casuals and I could talk to them about all the well known fighters, now they don't even know who the champions are and don't give a fuck.

MAKE IT MORE AVAILABLE.

And that awesome stacked card we just had on FOX? I advertised it to everybody on facebook and NOBODY cared or watched.

Bring back ufc unleashed for the casuals. jeez.

 

[skombolis]

Even disregarding the specious reasoning that basically boils down to a coincidence in timing, it just is hard to take the word of posters on a website after midnight (for many anyway) that the very thing they are on talking about is dying. That and the huge amounts of cash it is making compared to pre-Fox. But if people really were so apathetic to the sport now, what does that say about either your credibility or your time management that you still take the time to come talk about it? The last thing I do is talk about things I dont give a shit about any more. Sometimes the Internet sheep thing is too much, it really doesnt even matter what the thread title is any more does it?

 

[trane]

Even disregarding the specious reasoning that basically boils down to a coincidence in timing, it just is hard to take the word of posters on a website after midnight (for many anyway) that the very thing they are on talking about is dying. That and the huge amounts of cash it is making compared to pre-Fox. But if people really were so apathetic to the sport now, what does that say about either your credibility or your time management that you still take the time to come talk about it? The last thing I do is talk about things I dont give a shit about any more. Sometimes the Internet sheep thing is too much, it really doesnt even matter what the thread title is any more does it?

The thing is I'm not emotional about it, I just look at the facts. I never said I don't give a shit about mma anymore, just that's it's declining

 

[Bmurray]

Fox sucks. I should start watching their fights on the internet even though I get all their channels.

 

[Scamrock]

I like Fly, BW, FW div and female divs, sorry I'm a fight fan.

I also dont hvae a problem with fights on Fox and FS1, not a moron who cant keep track of two channels, oh and Fight Pass.

So hard to know which fight card is on which, who can expect someone to keep track of things like that?

Have to admit, it was a cluster fuck when the NLDS game ran long. But normally, I look up the channels and start times ahead of time. Pretty simple.

 

[Adamant]

Well, UFC certainly hasn't gotten much better since then. Only more boring. But I don't think FOX is at fault.

 

[Scamrock]

70m over 6 years is not "huge" for a brand as big as the UFC. They have more pay per views sure, but the numbers have drastically decreased. Quality means more than quantity and the UFC has lost quality.

Somebody please explain how they have lost quality.

Before: UFC frequently had non-title PPV main events.

Now: Every PPV is headlined by a title fight, sometimes two.

Before: UFC didn't have all of the top talent. Many of the top ranked fighters were spread out among multiple promotions.

Now: Almost all of the top ranked fighters are in the UFC.

Before: Because they didn't have all the top talent, they sometimes had to dig deeper to fill PPVs. That is why guys like Dustin Hazelett were on PPV co-main events and guys like Xavier Foupa-Pokam and Josh Hendricks were on PPV main cards (though the common myth is that the cards were always stacked and didn't have guys like that).

Now: Because UFC has almost all of the top talent, the top 4 fights on almost every PPV are made up of true top 15 ranked talent. The few exceptions are usually injury replacements for ranked fighters.

Beforez; There were 5 champs or less.

Now: There are 10 divisions. That means twice as many champs, and twice as many top ranked contenders.

Before: If the champs in the big 5 were injured the way they were this year, we would only have had a few title fights through November.

Now: Even though many of the champs were out injured, because there are more divisions, those champs were able to pick up the slack.

 

[CoolPotato]

MMA died with Pride. There was a brief surgence again when WEC was at its peak but UFC over saturated the market.

 

[skombolis]

The thing is I'm not emotional about it, I just look at the facts. I never said I don't give a shit about mma anymore, just that's it's declining

An opinion like that I can take seriously. someone who likes the sport and who will continue to follow obviously has a vested interest in seeing the quality remain high. Has it dipped? Probaby yes and probably for a lot of reasons. But when people start talking like its just garbage now my first question would be "then why are you still watching and talking about it? But your position I get

 

[Scamrock]

Could you be a more obvious shill?

PPV and TV ratings are in the toilet compared to the Spike days. That's not an opinion; its a fact.

So what? Do you enjoy things based on how many other people tune in?

Tell me where that guy was wrong? I agree with him that those were good cards with great headliners last year. I also agree when he says cards used to not be as stacked as some people say they were. What parts do you disagree with?

 

[sohocanaan22]

The Fox deal led to GSP's retirement as well. Anderson also broke his foot because of Fox.

Well, TS might be overstating things, but the deal has been the primary reason for the thinning of the overall cards. I can't recall the number but the deal called for the UFC to provide x number of hours of exclusive live footage. (Might be 400 per year.)

Obviously, the PPV productions don't count, so they have a much larger "free" time block to fill than ever before.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Even disregarding the specious reasoning that basically boils down to a coincidence in timing, it just is hard to take the word of posters on a website after midnight (for many anyway) that the very thing they are on talking about is dying. That and the huge amounts of cash it is making compared to pre-Fox. But if people really were so apathetic to the sport now, what does that say about either your credibility or your time management that you still take the time to come talk about it? The last thing I do is talk about things I dont give a shit about any more. Sometimes the Internet sheep thing is too much, it really doesnt even matter what the thread title is any more does it?

About the only thing TS posts about is the death of the UFC and how the good old days were so much better.

Now is much better than when the UFC ppvs were on Friday nights. Much better than when there were only PPV cards. Much better than when the prelims were only aired if fights on the PPV main card ended early and they ended to fill airspace.

The complains about not being able to follow the UFC because it is on different channels is a joke, I guess these posters aren't able to follow any other sport also. Nor do they follow mma outside of the UFC, no wonder they complain about "no names", they don't follow the sport much. But they also refer to fighters that have fought 3-5 time in the UFC as "who the hell is that guy".



And Spike is a shoddy channel, bunch of 3rd rate shows.

 

[JayElectra]

You know how powerful nostalgia is when people start talking about the good old days of Spike TV.