UFC Fighters as Products

I've been an MMA fan since UFC 1. I follow most promotions, and while I am not a walking fight encyclopedia, I do know a thing or two about the game and the players that make it up.

As I sat in my nice $200.00 seat at the bell center last Saturday, I could barely hold my nachos and beer down. My friend and I (who had never seen a live MMA event before) started saying, "It's ok. It's just the undercard. The main card matches will be better." This quickly turned to, "It's ok. The main event will bring the house down." By the main event, we were so angry we wanted to walk out, but that would've taken away from valuable booing time. As I sat there watching the gong-show that was Silva/Leitis, surrounded by 20,000 booing mma fans, I realized that this wasn't just something that 'happened'. Boring matches like this have been coming along with ever increasing frequency. Why?

The more the UFC enforces contractual exclusivity, internal talent development, and this 'no badmouthing anything UFC related' policy, the worse the matches get.

One of the reasons Pride was so great, was that the fight-makers would take talent from everywhere. Regardless of the organization's clear bias towards Japanese fighters, If they saw someone impressive from another country, organization etc, they took him. If he was controversial and outspoken; even better. More fodder for the fans. In the UFC, it's like big brother is overseeing everything and god help you if you have something negative to say about any aspect of the organization. Pride also had a set of rules that were conducive to exciting fights. Bouts were judged overall, based on how hard the fighters tried to end the fight. The UFC is still stuck in the stone-age with their round-by-round, boxing-style scoring. This method of scoring itself breeds boring fights as the competitors only fight to win their rounds rather than to destroy their opponents.

The real shocker was when I watched the replay at home and heard Joe Rogaine insulting the fans who were booing. He actually had the nerve to suggest that those booing did not understand technical fighting. How strange. Rogaine used to be the first to point out if a match was crap. As time has gone on, his leash has gotten shorter and shorter, and now he is little more than a cheerleading lapdog for UFC management. Pathetic. He should go back to comedy.

Dana White is also another big problem. He has shown extreme personal bias for his fighter friends time and time again. What's worse is he also shows bias against the fighters he personally doesn't like (just ask Vera). Props to him for issuing the apology, but while looking at the fighters as a problem, he should also take a look ine mirror.

I long for the days where larger than life fighters fought tooth and nail to end their opponents. Sometimes the fighters were cockey, and sometimes they said things they shouldn't have, but there was rarely a dull moment. As the UFC doesn't seem to want to shake things up or make any real changes to it's way of doing things, we can expect to see more and more fights that are about as exciting as watching cheese age.