The UFC hasn't produced a star in over 5 years.

Cptn1NSAN0 said:
Nope, everybody knew who those guys were even if they didn't follow MMA and all of them have been in movies.
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No they didn't, ask anyone not familiar with combat sports at all who TF Tito Ortiz is, or Randy Couture, even Chuck and no one will have any idea WTF you're talking about.

They were MMA stars absolutely, but not stars that transcended the sport, everyone knows Conor McGregor or Rousey, people will look at you with a blank stare if you ask them about anyone else.
 
I think they have tried to give the "star" push to a few fighters, but the hype train crashed and burned before they could become a real star. Sage Northcutt and Page Van Zant come to mind. I think they are trying with O'Malley and Paddy. Both are flamboyant and have the personality, but I don't think either is good enough inside the octagon. O'Malley will have his chance against Sterling though. To be a star requires having that starpower both inside and outside the ring, and that's tough to come by. A lot of guys are really good fighters like Volk and Islam, but not that interesting otherwise. It's also tough to build stars when guys never fight.
 
Paddy needs to keep winning and have a step up in competition, he can definitely become a "star" if he keeps that trajectory.
He has that X factor like Conor did, to a degree. Needs to prove he's elite and start putting good kids away.

Same for Khamzat. If he actually fights (and wins) he could become huge in time.
Won't happen by sitting on the sidelines though.

O'Malley is already on the right track.

Outside of those three, I don't know who else the UFC an look to next.
They need skilled fighters who are their own hype machine outside of the octagon, but those guys seem few and far between...
 
I feel a lot of the problem is that they've become much more dependant on "stars" than they were before, they've lost their ability to consistently pull in decent PPV buyrates for cards with good MMA on even if the fighters were not mainstream celebs like Lesnar, Rousey and McGregor.
 
Let's be clear. Khamzat, Paddy, O'Malley, Islam, Oliveira and Poirer are stars in the MMAVerse. Outside of MMA, nobody cares about them, and nobodies ever heard of them.
Only a handful of fighters ever reached SUPERstardom. Rousey, Lesnar, Chuck and Conor would be the few.
There were some outliers like Jones, Izzy, GSP and Silva but even most of those fighters, the general public is not really aware of.
 
Vanzanto said:
What a totally bullshit comment. The general standard of fighters today in the UFC are as high as it has ever been.
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Is that why half the cards are filled with Dana with contender series guys with 5 pro fights?
 
Banana Tree's Nemesis said:
What metric are you basing all that on?
Local support is a thing. Fighters might be popular beyond your scope. Jiri is very popular in the Czech Republic. Islam is a big star in Russia. Khamzat is a huge star too. Even Darren Till is a star in England.
Topuria is gaining a lot of attention in Spain.
Define clearly what differentiates a star from a casual and we can have an argument about it.
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Darren till is not a star lol. Outside of mma fans no one has heard of him. That's not true at all
 
Khamzat was blowing up, though his random year of inactivity hasn't helped.

But if he runs through Costa, the hype train will be unbelievable.
 
HolmeZy55 said:
No they didn't, ask anyone not familiar with combat sports at all who TF Tito Ortiz is, or Randy Couture, even Chuck and no one will have any idea WTF you're talking about.

They were MMA stars absolutely, but not stars that transcended the sport, everyone knows Conor McGregor or Rousey, people will look at you with a blank stare if you ask them about anyone else.
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Hard disagree. Especially when we're talking relative to the time period. People knew about "that Mohawk guy" and "that fangs guy."
 
Khabib was a bigger star than Jones and Izzy combined and you didn't even list him. He was the most famous athlete in Russia for a minute as well as one of the biggest in the Arab world.
 
The NBA has a ton of stars and a terrible product. Maybe producing stars shouldn't be the primary goal. And the UFC, organized fighting, is never going to break into the mainstream like other sports did. For one, sports are post-prime entertainment in modern culture, nevermind where culture is headed in the next 10-20 years, and there are too many people that simply do not enjoy watching people beat the shit out of each other. So yeah, who cares about what some people who don't follow the sport consider a star. If you're a fan I'd say there's plenty, It's all how you want to define star, superstar, whatever.
 
The real stars are the fighters that keep us coming back. To hell with what casuals are paying attention to or what UFC thinks should be popular. Just enjoy your favourites. I don’t need a Ronda Rousey to tune in and have a blast.
 
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Oris79 said:
Jones joined the UFC in August of 2008
Izzy joined the UFC in Feb 2018.

These two really are the only champs with any drawing power. I know your purists are gonna tout how awesome the likes of Islam and Volk are, but these guys aren't draws. It's really a tragedy what's happened to the UFC. Dana and company pushed the brand over the fighters and the end result is this saturated brand that no one is lining up at Buffalo Wild Wings to go see as they did 2015 and before.
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The two are choir boys compared to mcgregor.

They've tried but mcgregor is still top dog from a draw perspective.
 
Since Conor they don't invest as much in single individuals.
Because they lose their negotiation power that way and the fighters fight less often, because they got more money. They learned their lesson.
Conor only fought 4 times in the last 7 years.
 
I've never understood this "produced" shit. UFC can't just make someone a star. Even WWE struggles with that and that's fucking scripted
 
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