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The product is growing stale
By Zach Arnold | July 8, 2007
When a friend of mine introduced me to the sport of Mixed Martial Arts at the end of the 1990s, all was still right with the world. Sakuraba had just polished off his first Gracie, opponents were scared s$%&^*! of Tom Erikson and Igor Vovchanchyn and Ricco Rodriguez was miles away from weighing as much as a breeding bull. Still up until two years ago, MMA was a young sport looking for its place between boxing, kickboxing and professional wrestling. Much has changed in the past twenty-four months and few of it is positive from a fan’s perspective.
With the UFC gaining huge popularity as a result of the “Ultimate Fighter” reality show and PRIDE going out of business due to shady underhand dealings behind the scenes, Zuffa is now without a rival on the North American market.
As always when there is a de-facto monopoly (see Microsoft or Coca Cola), it is the customers, users and in this case the fan who suffers. And the UFC product has suffered greatly in the past couple of months: From weak fight cards (UFC 72), to anticlimactic finishes (TUF5 lightweight finale), from overhyped, disappointing “big names” (Herring, Cro Cop, Werdum) to young stars, that can’t cope with the spotlight (Griffin, Sanchez, St. Pierre), from fights that suffer greatly from the unified rules (Herring-O’Brien, Sherk-Franca) to bouts whose results are flawed because of the “ten point must”-system (Franklin-Okami, Evans-Ortiz).
What turns me off the most is the generic nature of the events: Every time you will have Bruce Buffer announcing another two “UFC warriors”, Mike Goldberg using the same old phrases (“it is all over!”), “Big John” McCarthy standing up fighters too quickly and rednecks in the audience booing once it gets back to the ground. Every time you will see strong wrestlers dominating and winning fights based on takedowns alone, just because practitioners of other styles are at a disadvantage due to the rules and their enforcement. And every time you will see super hyped main events not living up to the expectations.
That is probably the biggest bone I have to pick with Zuffa. The pre-event hype has gotten so obnoxious, it has become really hard to swallow. One superlative is hunting the next and fighters are billed as stars who are barely “Top 20” material. It is one thing to get your viewers fired up for the event, but claiming UFC 73 to be the “greatest mixed martial arts show ever” is just beyond ridiculous. Fact of the matter is, the UFC has produced only two truly great fights in the past two years: Matt Hughes vs. B.J. Penn from UFC 63 and Karo Parisyan vs. Diego Sanchez from UFC Fight Night 6.
Compared to PRIDE who staged unbelievable fights like Mauricio Shogun vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira or Mirko Cro Cop vs. Wanderlei Silva on a bi-monthly basis, this is simply beyond the pale. Borrowing the boxing concept of one clear-cut main event with two stars in it combined with a solid co-“main event”, mostly featuring up-and-comers, as well as a largely meaningless undercard has not helped Zuffa in their case. Despite all the hype for “Stacked”, the last UFC “mega card” with star power from top to bottom was UFC 57 which was in February of 2006.
The problem is: The UFC is not about the fighters, it’s about the product. It’s totally irrelevant whether Randy Couture, Fedor Emelianenko or Matt Albright holds the heavyweight title – they would all get the same treatment from the well-oiled UFC hype machine. This has made titles meaningless and fights generic. Joe Silva could probably book Alexander the Great against Achilles right now and the fight would totally drown in Mickey’s replays, movie commercials and Goldberg’s empty words.
I did an interview with Din Thomas in November of 2005 and I asked him whether he thought MMA had the potential to overtake boxing as a spectator fight sport within the next five years. His answer was as interesting, as prophetic: “I’m not sure if MMA can overtake boxing. I think the direction that MMA has taken in the US isn’t for technical athletes. I think that the direction that it’s going will explode at first but then it will die down. I think right now, it’s really exploding. I can compare it to the Jerry Springer show back in the 90’s. People just wanted to see fights and action. They got just that. After a while, it calmed down and nothing is left. MMA in the US is similar. People are not really appreciating the sport of it. They seem more interested in the excitement of it. I think there needs to be an equal balance. I am not criticizing people for wanting excitement. Hell, I enjoy watching two guys scrap too. But when a guy is penalized for not being exciting enough is damaging to the technical aspect of the sport.”
The question is: Has MMA already peaked? Or can the company, that is currently the face of the whole sport, develop and expand it in a way, that it will still be around in thirty, forty years?
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Tim Leidecker, UFC | 76 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Man, your glass is definitely half empty.
Just like a musician who died young, Pride is destined to be eulogized and its faults glossed over in people’s memories. That’s fine.
The constant whining about the UFC is unbelievable though. As a fan since UFC 2 I can say these are salad days. Seeing how the sport has developed to the point of seeing two truly magnificent mixed martial fighters like Nate Marquardt and Anderson Silva has been fantastic.
While the sport was struggling people like you were whining “why isn’t the sport bigger?” and now that it has grown you whine “why isn’t it smaller?”
This will be the last time I spend my valuable time reading through this sort of drivel in search of a reasonable idea.
Another Pride Fanboy upset that the UFC has taken over the world?
Only 2 great fights? What about Spencer Fisher vs. Sam Stout 2? Frank Edgar vs. Tyson Griffin? Tyson Griffin vs. Clay Guida? Din Thomas vs. Clay Guida? The Epic fight that was Randy Couture vs. Tim Sylvia, with an entire arena on their feet in pure excitement as their hero did the impossible? Or what about Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin 1, with one of the greatest displays of demolishing a top tier fighter this sport has ever seen?
And lets look at your GLORIOUS PRIDE!!!! They were Con Artists. Mirko Filipovic was created into a star by KO’ing fighters with masks on. The Grand Prix that he won, he did so by defeating a Middleweight (Minowa) and two Light Heavyweights (Silva & Yoshida) on his way to the finals. Yet people thought he was the second coming of Jesus because he got to the finals against a completely beaten Barnett.
Or what about Gomi having 2 losses during his “title reign” and still being the champion? Or Henderson losing to Misaki and still having the belt. Or Rua being the linear champion at 205 lbs for over a year with no attempt from Pride to even say he was the best. Or Gomi getting choked out by Aurelio, barely beating him in a razor close decision, and then Aurelio getting no shot after that.
For as great as Pride was, it was a big scam that a lot of the hardcore fans bought into.
Lastly, the UFC has done one thing VERY WELL. They have made those titles EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. The PPV’s are headlined by Title Fights. Each fighter works his way towards a title shot. To a casual fan, those titles absolutely mean something. And rightfully so.
As for the UFC preferring excitement, they do walk a fine line, but walk it very well. They promote exciting fighters very well. As they should. But they also give boring fighters like Nathan Marquardt his title shot when he deserves it. They give Sherk an immediate title shot at 155 lbs, knowing full well that he was probably one of the top guys, but would be boring.
This is more of Pride Fanboy mad that his dream machine is gone, and reality has hit the MMA World.
Lots of sports peak and then become minor sports for years and even decades. Tennis hasn’t been a major sport in the US for eons and has no serious superstars at this moment, especially when compared to the late 70s and early 80s. Golf coverage is through the roof compared to the same time in 1993. NASCAR has shrunk from the early decade highs, but its still very much here. The biggest problem MMA will always have is that its a combat sport in a land where stick and ball sports garner all the attention. Hockey is #5 or #6 as far as sports go in this country, maybe even further down than that, and yet it still is referred to as part of the “big 4” and recieves more coverage than any individual sport other than when Tiger is golfing or during the Olympics.
I used to think that maybe MMA could do 2.5 million buyrate shows, but I’m increasingly of the belief that until fighting styles become more refined and there are fighters coming from more nations, the coverage into UFC 71 may have seen the peak. There’s no attachment to the hispanic crowd right now who still very much favors boxing as well as no smaller weight classes accomodating them, and no interest in urban areas. Plus, they’ve pushed trying to make every fight a war, and that’s just not possible in a real sport. Not everyone is going to be Clay Guida, and if you come into watching MMA with that mindset, you are a fool.
As it is, MMA will eventually see fighters leave the UFC and go promote themselves or go with alternate promoters who will offer more money, and independant sanctioning organizations will come in. People will complain that there is no clarity like the old days, and the people who watched in the old days will remind them that there were always at least two sets of champions laying around, and anything but clarity overall.
I don’t think anyone will accuse me any time of being a PRIDE apologist, but let the public record state that I think PRIDE was a vastly more appealing product globally than UFC ever will be.
I elaborated on this statement on Any Given Saturday yesterday night. Audio here.
UFC is just not that ‘international’ of a product in terms of feeling. There’s minimal, if little interest at all in UFC in Japan or Asia. Most Japanese fighters view the current climate in the fight game as putting them into a major corner because they view UFC as a dead-end. They’re right.
The one thing I’ll give Hiroyuki Kato, Daisuke Sato, Saeki, Sakakibara, Shinoda, etc. is that they understood that you have to market stars. And in order to market fighters as stars, you have to make them larger-than-life image creations along with intricately being able to communicate and tell a story. This is what K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa refers to when he says that UFC doesn’t know how to make “TV contents.”
UFC’s formula for marketing is simple. Here are two guys fighting, here’s the reason why they are fighting or why you think you should watch them fight, here’s the fight, and here’s a result. It’s simple and it’s worked for UFC in terms of generating tens of millions of dollars.
The problem for UFC is not that they don’t know how to do the simple things right. The problem for them is the same one that Vince McMahon deals with that keeps him out of lucrative markets like Japan. UFC does business on their own terms and promotes a uniform product everywhere they go around the world. UFC does not bend or conform to the marketplace conditions of a foreign atmosphere. Once they get outside of the casino cities, they encounter some issues that they have to overcome in terms of promoting events.
Which is why I whole-heartedly believe that UFC will not run in Japan. If they run in Japan, the best they could do would be 10,000-15,000 paid. They would be better off running Hawaii or Hong Kong than they would be running Japan. Even Singapore is a better option.
UFC’s lone dominance in MMA now opens up the Japanese market very wide for someone to take over. The problem is that everyone in Japan is inept or corrupt to a third-world degree to take advantage of it.
The “Japan Model” is much like the boxing model in the states. It is artificially building of fighters through fights that they have a slim chance of losing. If Zuffa bent to those needs to put on fight card in Japan, it would hurt their primary market, which is America.
In fact, the UFC has much more international appeal then Pride ever had. Pride had appeal in Japan, and could garner 30,000 PPV Buys in America. And they were basically non-existent in Europe.
I have no problem with the UFC promoting UFC 73 as being the greatest event ever. The hardcore fan base makes up about 30,000 PPV Buys. The UFC gets anywhere between 300,000 to 500,000 for this PPV. That means we are probably looking at 95% of the audience that really hasn’t been exposed (and probably don’t care) about the rest of the MMA World. So to them, this is the most stacked card so far. Is it any different then Andre The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 3 being promoted like it was the greatest thing ever, despite the fact that they had wrestled more then a dozen of times in the late ’70’s, making the WM3 match really nothing special. But to the majority of the audience it was and still is a huge event.
And those are the fans that the matchmaking has to be directed at. Not this fickle Japanese Market that in 2 years might not even care about K-1 Hero’s anymore after Akiyama and Yamamoto are gone…..
All MMA fans are fickle. You’re mistaking PRIDE’s international appeal with the complete ineptness and allegations of corruption that prevented management from expanding internationally.
If the management of PRIDE had a clue about foreign operations, they would have been able to generate a ton of money internationally. However, like New Japan management failed to do in the 1990s, PRIDE also failed because of its management shortcomings for international vision.
As a pure product in terms hype, presentation, larger-than-life figures, etc. PRIDE was and is more marketable than UFC is internationally. I believe it. The reason it didn’t happen is because of who was involved behind the scenes.
People gave me a hard time for two years for ripping on PRIDE, not comprehending that I was ripping more on people involved with the organization than the product itself. It was not the product that ultimately failed to draw — it was the people behind it and their actions.
Stop lumping all international people together, the European market is differant to the Asian market. Watch a boxing match held in any western European country and I guarantee it is more like the UFC, than Pride.
Dude, seriously, make the links in your articles open up a new window…
for the good of everyone
45 you have no problem with anything the UFC does b/c you’re an absolute MARK for the promotion. It’s funny how you mock the “PRIDE fanboys” when you’re about a 100x greater UFC fanboy than anyone (PRIDE or UFC) I’ve ever seen.
To try to run down PRIDE but completely ignore the fact that PRIDE during their heyday had the most ridiculously deep talent roster, put on shows every two months that were top to bottom full of big name talents in big fights (that more often than not delivered b/c their rules system allowed for this to happen) and sold out absolutely HUGE gates that the UFC would only dream of pulling just reeks of your tunnel vision thinking that UFC is the be-all-and-end-all of the sport.
The one true shame is that PRIDE fell apart due to their shady behind the scenes dealings and weren’t able to move into the US market and strike while they were at their peak. Unfortunately most of the US audience will only know/remember PRIDE as the very watered down (and neutered due to UFC and other’s lobbying to make them use the very flawed “unified rules”) and financially hamstrung company they had become. It’s really too bad that times didn’t match-up and the “mma wars” weren’t able to really hit full steam during the US boom.
UFC now has the monopoly here and we’re going to continue to see these cards with one big fight and a bunch of “meh” fights filling out the rest of the card. But I guess if they’re able to convince the masses (and 45 Huddle is proof positive that they probably can) that fights like Ortiz-Evans or a 3rd Herring-Nog are “big event fights” why would they bother changing the gameplan?? They had their big time in the limelight with UFC 71 but honestly look at their last few cards and TV specials, little to no mainstream coverage…and I’m sure it’s no coincidence that they’ve not put any big names on their cards either. Not to mention the fact that they frigging own the PRIDE library and are bringing in all these guys and giving the fans pretty much ZERO background or highlights to let ppl know who these “world class” fighters are – it’s really baffling.
Zach’s right – the UFC is really only going to be able to capitalize and maintain their stranglehold in the US as they have shown absolutely zero interest in catering their product to the different markets. More of the bull-headedness from Mr. White himself.
Another musing…Chuck was all over TV and talk shows while he was champ and the UFC did everything they could to get him out in the public eye (Entourage guest spot). Now Rampage is the champ and he’s nowhere to be seen!!?!? WTF…are they just being lazy and know they’re the big cat in town? Why the hell arent they getting him out there on BDSSP or talkshows and that ilk? The guy’s a great talker, funny as hell and very charismatic – but why would you put that face out there?!!? I really really don’t get that.
First that Fedor piece and now this? What is it that Leidecker is bringing to this site other than laughably weak and one-sided analysis?
It’s a link to an MP3, not an article. As in, click link and download file.
I wouldn’t say I am a mark… I’m just not as negative as the rest of you.
Right now the UFC have 7 of the Top 10 Heavyweights signed on with the UFC. If they get Fedor, it will be 8. They have 9 of the Top 10 Light Heavyweights, 5 Middleweights (perhaps more depending on the Pride situation), 8 or 9 of the Welterweights, and at least half of the Lightweights. And what are they doing? They are putting those top tier fighters together and letting the fans find out who is the best. Now that is such a horrible thing.
As for Pride “selling out” arenas, that is a huge myth. A lot of those events are rumored to be papered, just like K-1 did with the Dynamite USA show (only to a lesser degree). This is why Pride was hurting for money as soon as they lost their TV deal. Because they weren’t exactly making tons of money as they made it appear.
You can go on complaining about how horrible the UFC is… And I will enjoy watching two title fights and a solid undercard. I will enjoy watching Couture, Gonzaga, GSP, Koscheck, Babalu, Stevenson, & Grove all on the same card. Or Sanchez/Fitch, Rua/Machida, & Liddell/TBA on the next American card after that.
Sorry, but this argument that they UFC has only one main event and a crap undercard has been completely wrecked. Starting with UFC 73, and the rumored cards going foward, they are stacking their cards with talent (who happen to be fighting each other).
And then from the money they they are gaining on those cards, they are helping that to subsidize their UFC Fight Nights and WEC Cards which give the fight fan public more free fights on TV then anybody could have ever dreamed of 5 years ago.
If that makes me a mark for Zuffa, then I guess I am the biggest mark in the history of this sport. It also means I get to enjoy all these wonderful fights 10 times more then your negative self ever will.
You know that Liddell was champion for over two years, and Rampage won the title a couple weeks ago, right? Were Zuffa instantly supposed to get him a guest spot on Cavemen?
Compared to K-1 (a TV-only play), PRIDE was a major house show company. They certainly did paper events once they lost television. However, house show revenues and merchandising were a big part of their revenue stream.
The problem for PRIDE is that their overhead was so expensive that it became unmanageable without TV revenues. You can’t pay guys $350,000 a fight when you can’t break even on shows without television.
You know better than that – in my opinion, Dana practically went on a media whirlwind to downplay Jackson’s win in order to minimize the damage to Liddell’s credibility. So much so that White compared Jackson beating Liddell to Buster Douglas (a 42-to-1 underdog) beating Mike Tyson. Liddell even appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman a few weeks after the loss.
Dana plays his favorites and has a tendency to think like a hardcore fan sometimes. He should have done a much better job booking Jackson for media spots after the win.
Honestly, who cares? As long as we get the best fighting each other, that stuff is easy to ignore. And the UFC plays that game so well.
They know Liddell is still a more marketable entity then Quinton Jackson, and they feed the masses that. At the same time, they acquire Pride, which the masses have no real clue about their fighter fan base…. And then give the hardcore fans all these top tier fighters to compete in the UFC like Rua, Nogueira, Cro Cop, and others.
NASCAR does the same thing. They sell that Patrick lady, despite the fact that she has never won a race. But that doesn’t mean the real fans of the “sport” don’t get to see who the best is through the ranking system. It is no different with Chuck Liddell.
As long as we get to constantly find out who the best in each weight class is (which is what Zuffa is doing), let the casual fans have their Chuck Liddell.
All articles (all links) man. We have to completely leave your website EVERY time we want to see what your referring to.
Seriously
I’m well aware of that ya dope – but UFC 71 was almost TWO MONTHS ago and Rampage has done how many interviews?!? Sorry Breen, but I guess I don’t count Sherdog webcasts.
I could see if it was like PRIDE where they made guys fight on the cards almost every two months and he had to relax and then go back into training immediately… fact of the matter is he doesn’t have a fight until September and they haven’t been striking on all of the media exposure he had leading into the fight.
You’re telling me with the plethora of sport talk shows (TV and radio) and talk shows in general that are whores for whatever is cool at the moment they couldn’t get him on tv?!?! Give me a friggin break – no one’s asking for them to cast him in guest spot on a tv show and that was pretty far from my point – but I bet the BDSSP, Rome, Kimmell and every other show on the map would have given him 5-10 minutes, but for some reason they haven’t. Just pointing it out.
And nice reply 45 – “its a myth that they sold out all of those shows, it’s been rumoured they were papered”. Great evidence to back that up and I’m willing to put money on the fact that by “rumour” you mean “something I just made up to help make my point and weaken yours”. It was well-evidenced that they were actually a VERY STRONG gate company that always did well at the gates and was a hot, hot item at the time. They only started hurting gate-wise b/c they got screwed out of the TV which was a huge marketing tool for them. Then they went to pot b/c (as Zach said) they’re model was based on the TV and ads helping to cover their large overhead based on fighter salaries and massive massive production set-ups.
I’m not (and I don’t think anyone else is) calling the UFC horrible. I’m lamenting that they have the ability to be the “new PRIDE” and put on top-to-bottom, awesome cards with the really deep talent roster that they have AND THEY JUST DON’T. I’m angry b/c we could still be seeing great dream cards all the time and we still see the Chris Lebens etc. that now have no business being there with far better fighters sitting on the sidelines. Not to mention the fact that the UFC is probably payrolling far lower amounts to their fighters than PRIDE did when they ran their shows. UFC’s brainwashed their new-found fanbase that knows nothing more than the UFC tells them (and what they tell them is the gospel) into accepting cards that are nowhere nears as “Stacked” as they truly could/should be.
Exactly! Another example of the ignorance of Dana’s if I didn’t make him a star and he didn’t come from my braintrust, I’m not too wild about him. I laughed at his “Buster Douglas” comment seeing that Jackson thoroughly dominated him their entire fight the first time around. In fact I wish the odds were 42-to-1, because I would have WAY MORE money off the fight than I already did.
Again its the whole “I’ll tell you all who’s good and who to like and you’ll like it” mentality that White has stolen from Vince MacMahon. But in the end it’s cutting off his nose to spite his face b/c they’re all his fighters and its the reason why we’re being force fed Silva-Franklin II already and most likely an even more unnecessary Liddell-Rampage III.
Seems to me that Leidecker just needs to lay off following the sport for a while. We shouldn’t really complain of oversaturation, it’s not like we’re not forced to watch each and every event. Pick and choose as you will.
Some of the explosion of the sport can be attributed to hype and fad, which will blow over eventually, but I doubt it’ll kill the sport or damage it in the long run. I think MMA will continue to explode before plateauing, and possibly reducing in “size” before hitting that plateau. Let it – those of us who follow the sport will still be here once the hype we find off-putting dies down.
Wooah – did anyone see this story??? Hopefully that doesn’t have any negative effect on the UFC in the mainstream media – the kind of “red meat” (as Zach would say) stuff that the media nuts would try to wildly equate with the “bloodsport”.
http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=30040
Clearly “45” has not seen much Pride. I personally have seen every single UFC and every single Pride show. EVERY ONE. And having been a fan of MMA before Pride even existed, I can say, as a true fan, that there is no doubt in my mind, that was Pride was in every way, superior to the UFC. From the fighters, to the fights themselves, to the production, the broadcasting, and the respect the organization had for fighters, fans and the sport itself, Pride embodied mixed martial arts and all the glory, drama and world-class competition that it could be. The UFC does not. UFC is UFC. I dont think I need to go into detail about how predictable, scripted and uncreative the UFC version of MMA is. The UFC does not treat the sport of MMA with the dignity or respect it deserves. Pride was MMA. It was the best that MMA ever was. And if something doesnt change with the UFC, Pride will have been the best MMA ever will have been. And that is very sad to say.
Zach,
I have a problem with what you wrote:
I used to watch wrestling until 11. I quit watching because I realized that all the reasons I watched it for was a lie. I watch MMA because I want to find the greatest martial artists in the world at each weight class. By tinkering with the simple formula of:
It would destroy the integrity of the sport, and may very likely back fire. I used to watch Pride FC religiously, but have recently doubt some of the myths of superstardom that you wrote about earlier. Is Crocop really as good as he is or was he rigged to win the OWGP by walking through easier competition? I noticed that none of his opponents were submission specialist until Josh Barnett. I can only speak for myself, but if I were to find out that MMA is nothing but a byproduct of a marketing machine run amok, run for the expressed purpose of making money (yes, I know, it’s mostly that, but the sport at its core is still real) I would be so revolted that I would quit watching altogether. Sports should stay real and not manufactured. Leave the storylines to Hollywood and McMahon.
Maybe I’m a simpleton, but I just want to watch two fighters step into the cage, and may the best fighter win, regardless if he can talk a good game or if he’s fighting for world peace.
There’s so many things wrong about that post I don’t even know where to start.
A) Why wouldn’t you market your champion? First of all they ALWAYS made it their point to “market their champions” and put them out there show them they were behind them and loyal to them. Now suddenly Dana doesn’t like the result he got b/c he pushed so hard for Chuck, instead of re-jigging things he just bull-headedly keeps jamming Chuck down people’s throats. What kind of sport wouldn’t want to market their champion and top guy at the weight-class – it just doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Why wouldn’t you go about EDUCATING your fanbase? Instead they choose to tell them who to like and do their best to make sure that’s who is their champion and face of the UFC. Why do you think Chuck got tailor-made matches against grapplers w/ absolutely no standup? Why do you think they’ve done everything in their power to put Franklin against guys who were going to make him look good and then shoe-horn him into another MW Championship fight?
Either you’re just being ignorant or you’re missing the point completely. UFC constantly tells the casual fans “who’s the best” and then minimalizes guys who ARE THE BEST when it’s not convenient for them to “be the UFC’s best”. You follow that? They’ll never actually know or be able to figure out who’s the best b/c they’re constantly bombarded with promos telling them otherwise…and they’re bound to bet to get Liddell in a rematch after one tune-up fight with Jackson in hopes he can win it…so we won’t be getting to see Rua/Silva etc fighting Jackson until they’re done trying their hardest to have the belt around Liddell’s waist.
B) Danica Patrick is an IRL driver, not a NASCAR driver. They’re absolutely STARVED for any type of attention they can get and they’ve got a hot ass chick…and they’re considered a big joke by people for the very reason that they constantly push her out there when she’s not that great and basically say “hey look! She’s hot and she’s in IRL!! Watch IRL!!!” Surely to goodness you’re not suggesting UFC take marketing tips from the freaking IRL.
You guys are reading into the Buster Douglas comment way, way too much. It’s an off-hand remark by someone who obviously doesn’t contemplate matters much before he speaks, and it’s apparent, no transparent, that he was trying to compare Liddell to Tyson more than he was trying to compare Rampage to Douglas.
If you guys want to make a case for something, don’t throw something out and spin it using the worst possible (and least plausible) explanation available. White gave Herring a push that was alot more than he deserved, and no one is being pushed harder than Rampage other than Chuck and Randy.
OK as a long term fan who is not crazy like a lot of the regular posters on this site I think the author hit it right on the head. As I left Arco Arena last night I had almost the exact same conversation with my girlfriend. The product is a bit weak, and the live presentataion sucks. I enjoy the sport but for whatever reason the UFC has not got me so exicted as of late. To many average fights, to long between fights for the top guys, and just no sense that we are witnessing a fucking awesome moment in sports history.
Wow. While I agree that the article was maybe a little one-sided, I don’t think that it deserved to be attacked as much as it did. 45 Huddle, for calling a Pride fanboy, aren’t you doing the same thing for the UFC? It seems like it to me. I was a big fan of Pride, and I still am. I love all the mystery and mystique that surrounded that fine organization. The fact that it was allegedly run by Yakuza members and underhanded people really doesn’t keep me up at night. Being able to see my boy Gomi KTFO alot of people was what I was wanting to see. I miss Pride, and I still hold out hope that we’ll see it back in some form. Pride, to me, seemed to connect more with their audience in a way that I just do not see it doing. I always looked at Pride fans as the more intelligent, insightful, and intuitive fans, and the UFC fans were more like bumbling drunks…maybe this is because when I watched Pride PPVs I did not hear them booing every single time a fight went to the ground. Sadly, the latter could not be said for the latest UFC PPV. Overall, i get excited watching Pride fights, UFC fights (Was screaming for Nog to beat the shit out of Herrings’ face and then to tear his fucking head off), heck, I even watch DEEP and Shooto and ZST and Dragon’s Gate fights…I am a true MMA fan, but I don’t like the unified rules.
Only critique of the article that I had was that the UFC has more good fights then just the two mentioned. Bonnar/Griffin 1 off the top of my head…
Hi Cyphron,
In regards to the ‘telling the story’ quote you refer to, here’s what I specifically mean… Fuji TV and the producers of the PRIDE TV product did a fantastic job of telling intricate stories and backgrounds of each fighter before each match. We’re not talking about UFC All-Access style shows, but rather what the promotion did the night of each show. It was colorful and it was about presenting the fighters as larger-than-life characters. In Japan, sports are also entertainment. They understand this concept, which is why everything at a PRIDE show was presented as superhuman – the ring entrances, the lighting, the layout of the arena, etc. Every little detail of craftsmanship was focused on and enhanced.
Ultimately, the idea of someone in the business is to make money and to create a product as palatable as possible. I am not dismissing UFC’s product in terms of it being good or bad. My initial argument was that the way the PRIDE was produced, it was more conducive to being marketed internationally than UFC’s product is. With that stated, management behind PRIDE was clueless about how to market and take their product into foreign markets. And it showed. The product and the fighters didn’t fail, but management did.
You can have both the integrity of sports and the value of entertainment in the same product.
[…] of the interesting questions Pedro asked Dana White on his show is a question that was raised in the comments section of Tim Leidecker’s latest article. That question is why UFC is not pushing or marketing […]
I think the difference in how UFC and Pride shows were produced is huge. While Pride wasnt a global promotion in terms of business its shows felt like they were the World Championships of MMA. I know Japan and the US are two total different markets but if UFC ran in Japan it would not surprise me to see UFC run exactly the same product as they do in the US.
I don’t like the way the Security i the UFC think there bigger then the Fighters and Big Johns’ the same.You never see Tyson or Haglar being talked to like a schoolkid.
Zach, if Tim has a case of the Mondays will we all have to read about it?
I find the classicism of the people who speak of PRIDE as it was the “World Championships of MMA” because they had video walls to be sort of astonishing. I liked watching PRIDE’s events, but it was nothing more than a promotion to me, and huge pyro displays don’t necessarily make me believe their bouts are any bigger than the UFC’s. Giant Silva wasn’t any better because he was in PRIDE, nor did it make Cro Cop vs Tamura/Dos Caras Jr./Oyama/Yamamoto/Kanehara anymore palatable. There were plenty of flaws with PRIDE even in their heyday. You’d have to be blind not to see it. Only during the Bushido shows, once those became dedicated to the lower weights, did it ever seem as if they had figured out how to produce fight cards without ridiculous freakshows and mismatches. That, and worked bouts.
If big names fought each other in Japan, PRIDE mk.2 would do just fine. They wouldn’t be running Tokyo Dome off the bat, but they could make money using Cro Cop, Gomi, having Sakuraba/Tamura, etc. I think its almost insulting to say that in order to interest the Japanese fanbase, you need big sets and what not is a bit insulting. If someone just threw more money into Shooto’s production, does anyone believe they’d be selling out Saitama Super Arena instead of Korauken Hall?
Pride criticizers never fail to mention the “freakshows” and inevitably, Giant Silva.
This is such a weak tactic, and very telling. While most people critical of the UFC point out the staleness of the UFC production and the lack of depth in some of its divisions (at least until recently), it is not hard to criticize bad matchups and tomato cans as well. But with TV production, fight build-up, and broadcasting as predictable as the UFC, it usually doesnt get to the that.
I mean, its not difficult to point out the guys who have no business in the “superbowl of MMA,” (see 98% of TUF guys) or mismatches that do little more than build up a champion or star while putting a low-level fighter in serious medical danger (Tito vs. Shamrock (1-3), Silvia vs. Telligman, Silva vs. Leben, etc). I will spare you more details, but needless to say, the list goes on and on. Bottom line is, this is a weak argument against Pride, because inevitably there are going to be weaker fighters in every org. Not every fighter can be a champion or be elite. However, the percentage of B, C and D-level (and worse) fighters in the UFC was and still is waaaay higher than Pride ever was. Just compare every single card over the years. Its quite obvious….if you watch.
You do know that the UFC puts on double the amount of shows as Pride right? Telingham was a late replacement for Assuerio Silva and Chris Leben was undefeated in the UFC, when he fought Anderson Silva. Ortiz Vs Shamrock was in the top 3 drawing series’ in UFC history
This is such a weak tactic, and very telling. While most people critical of the UFC point out the staleness of the UFC production and the lack of depth in some of its divisions (at least until recently), it is not hard to criticize bad matchups and tomato cans as well. But with TV production, fight build-up, and broadcasting as predictable as the UFC, it usually doesnt get to the that.
So, because the video packages for Tamura/Takada or Yoshida/Ogawa were really good, that makes the fights better? PRIDE undoubtedly had its share of great matches. No one here doubts that. It also had a lot of freakshows and very non-competitive bouts. Oh, and the works.
mismatches that do little more than build up a champion or star while putting a low-level fighter in serious medical danger (Tito vs. Shamrock (1-3), Silvia vs. Telligman, Silva vs. Leben, etc)
Telligman is a far more legitimate opponent than Yamamoto or Tamura at heavyweight, and I would really like to hear how he wasn’t. Silva vs. Leben was hardly considered a huge mismatch at the time. Leben had cracked a bunch of exceedingly servicable talent like Cote, Rivera, Santiago, Swick, and Radach. That he lost to argurably the best 185 lb fighter in the world shouldn’t necessarily be a indictment against him. Marqhardt and Franklin are both high level guys as well, and neither one made it out of the first round either.
Continuously making it sound as if PRIDE was the alpha/omega of fight shows is ridiculous, however. Yes, there were some great cards like Bushido 9 and many of the Total Eliminations and Final Conflict shows. That the UFC doesn’t “stack the card” as much is largely due to the fact that they have to deal with athletic commissons that prevent fighters from fighting soon after they’ve been KOed or refuse to let them run one night tournaments. None of that is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to fighter safety, BTW, Zuffa also runs significantly more shows than PRIDE did between TUF finales, Ultimate Fight Nights, and UFC PPVs. PRIDE at their highest point never ran more than 10 shows in a calendar year. UFC runs at least 16 a year, and will probably do 18 or so not counting WEC.
(well, that, and a lot of fighters who were considered “PRIDE exclusives” were way overrated. does anyone really consider Shoji or Minowa better than the “TUF guys” are?)
[…] Fightopinion asks: Has MMA already peaked? […]
“The Pride product was far superior”
Was the AFL superior to the NFL? perhaps
Was the ABA more exciting than the NBA? maybe
What does ABA, AFL & Pride have in common?
Nuff said
This reads like a thread on Sherdog.
45, thank you for being sensible.
Others, how can you praise Pride on the one hand for filling its fight shows with great talent but then not correlate it to the criticism that their overhead (read as: fighter salaries) was too high? You can’t have it both ways.
Pride under DSE probably is better suited for the Asian marketplace but 1) that is while they were managing the company deep into the red and 2) Zuffa hasn’t even begun promoting Pride in Japan yet, if they even bother to. DSE drove a Ferrari but now the Ferrari has been repossessed and they’re now on foot. Zuffa drives a nice Toyota, will continue to drive a Toyota, and you can bet that Toyota will be replaced by a Ferrari when they can actually afford it.
Jason Gatties hits the nail on the head. We can eulogize DSE all we want but it’s a non-issue now.
As to which company can better promote an international show? It’s a non-issue because we’re comparing a company that no longer exists with a company that has barely begun to try.
And Zuffa is promoting this as sport and not spectacle. In the short-term, it may seem like the marketing opportunity is lost but over the long term this will be crucial to getting “more” mainstream. Damn, there’s not even an argument whether it’s mainstream or not anymore. How can we sit on the sidelines and criticize Zuffa’s track record for growing this sport the way they have? They’ve followed their business plan all the way down the line and we can’t argue with the success.
Re: Rampage. Chuck was the star of a surprise hit reality show, spent years building a PR resume that eventually made him attractive to mainstream media, and has shown an unbelievable amount of loyalty to Dana that Dana reciprocates. Quinton doesn’t have anywhere near the PR resume Chuck has so mainstream media outlets are hesitant to book him. When Quinton coaches TUF 7 and the show is an even bigger hit than TUF 3, he strings some wins together as champ, and he puts the time in doing lower-level PR the mainstream national media will be more open to talking about him. Right now, he’s just the guy who beat Chuck. That ain’t enough to get on Good Morning America, no matter how hard Zuffa’s PR team try.
I agree with every word. Thanks for that. Most here havent watched MMA long enought to know what the fuck your talking about.
Just for the record: I don’t intend to turn this into a UFC vs. PRIDE argument, *but* PRIDE has been way bigger than the UFC in Europe.
I endorse Phelps’ statement. He pretty much says everything that I would want to about this.
At UFC 73… the announcer, Bootleg Buffer, announced Nogueira as a “jiujitsu fighter making his Octagon debut.” THATS IT. THATS IT!!!!
Why could he not mention that he is a jiujitsu master, maybe the best jijutitsu fighter ever in the history MMA? Or that he is is widely recognized as the #2 HW in the world? Or that he is the former, long-time Pride champion who made so many defenses against the very very best in the entire world??
Why, in the pre-fight, instead of detailing all of Nogueira’s great accomplishments using the footage that THEY own, did they show a quick, useless montage and briefly mention that he’s fought alot of guys. If the sport will ever get the credibility that it deserves, they need to actually delve, at least a little, into who these fighters are and what makes them special. They treated Nogueira like some nobody. Might as well be Irish Jake OBrian, or Sean Gannon. And all ‘Goldy’ can say about Crocop is that he is “the most dangerous striker in MMA.” Why cant they actually give chronological and detailed histories of the fighters that make people actually care about them??? Why is that so hard? Because then it would be like a real sport???? Is that why?
Just for the record: I don’t intend to turn this into a UFC vs. PRIDE argument, *but* PRIDE has been way bigger than the UFC in Europe.
That’s not because its promoted significantly better. Weren’t their events televised on tape delay on Eurosport, like K-1 and some of the Dutch MMA shows? The UFC has no TV deal outside the UK, where they’d done some decent draws in two major UFCs.
MoreThanUFC,
This isn’t a Sherdog thread. If you’re going to attack other’s knowledge of MMA, at least back it up. Please englighten us with your massive MMA knowledge.
As for Pride VS UFC:
Pawell Nastula is proof that Pride management doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. Here you have a Judo legend, an olympic gold medal winner, who’s converting to MMA. You need to put him in with a 4-0 or 5-0 fighter. What does Pride do with him except to throw him to the big dogs, Nogueira, Alexander, and Barnett. They basically set him up to lose.
MMA is a complex game that takes experience to become proficient at. You just can’t be good because of background in one sport. In all sports, the rookies are always the future. Superstars have a short lifespan before they are eventually replaced. The UFC understands that, and build up their rookies slowly and carefully. Pride uses rookies as “cans” for their superstars. It’s real sad that Nastula had to resort to steroids in order to stay competitive. Who knows, in the UFC, he could’ve been a star.
Just because UFC has been successful at what they have tried to accomplish and just because their model has worked in America thus far, that means that hey are beyond compare? Beyond critique? and beyond an analysis of how they treat the sport of MMA? I think not.
Are we not allowed to point out that the UFC is both dumbed and watered-down?? Both in the rules and in the production and broadcasting?? Are we not allowed to point that out just because millions of people now watch it in the US? They are not above criticism just because they have succeeded. So the AFC and ABA failed. The NBA and NFL succeeded. But their product is well-made. The UFC’s is not. It is formulaic, repetitive, and dull. The only criticism I’m reading of Pride is the mismatches and freakshows. As I said before, and people failed to comprehend apparently, is that these situations inevitably happen in any promotion. Sure, they happened in Pride, they happen in UFC now. That’s fine. I accept that. But that is the only criticism of Pride that people have. Criticizing and pointing out the flaws of the UFC is really too easy. They completely lack creativity and are painfully adverse to change. Dana White is a living example of that.
For the record, Pawel Nastual showed more in his fights against Nogueira, Aleks and Barnett then he ever could have in his first 10 fights against the likes of the fighters he would have been put up against in the UFC. He is a star. Considering, he did great in those fights. I have all the respect in the world for him.
I think it’s somewhat ironic that Pride is praised for staging “unbelievable matches” with fighters such as Cro Cop, when the author has just derided UFC for “disappointing big names” such as Cro Cop.
Seriously…WTF?
Pride’s strength, that defining continuing soap-operaesque storyline came directly from what I consider to be one of Pride’s key weaknesses: staged or utterly one-sided fights. You can only guarantee that sort of storyline when you’re working the game. It’s no coincidence that the people who love Pride so much are the people who came to the sport from pro wrestling. It’s got just enough of a hint of authenticity to it to fool the average consumer, while giving all the “full flavor” of a real tar cigarette because it was worked.
To people like me who have always rejected pro wrestling, that’s anathema. The steroid culture, the staged fights, the freakshow, all of that stuff turns me away from the Japanese product.
Yeah, that’s what Asia and Japan gravitated toward in the past. They did that because there is a HUGE pro wrestling culture there, larger, IMHO than anything the US does, and probably even more than Mexico. Truly rabid fans who will happily support half a dozen promotions simultaneously, if the entities were able to stay away from the yakuza. The US market is no longer capable of sustaining something like that, if it ever was, because the hardcore fans have moved on to backyard wrestling, which has real violence. You can go into any small town in America and find that there’s a weekly or monthly wrestling event going on in a barn or warehouse, fire hall, or school gym. These people are getting their kicks without paying for the PPVs and t-shirts.
However, I think that it is a logical fallacy to claim that Asia and Japan have definitively rejected UFC and or ZuffaPride when they have never been fully exposed to the current product. They weren’t even looking at UFC because they had Pride in their own backyard, yelling and screaming for attention. And maybe now K-1 is going to just absorb all of that attention, and they really will ignore what Zuffa is putting out there.
Meanwhile, Zuffa has 95% of the US MMA revenues, they’re practically running a blitzkrieg in the UK, and I would not be surprised if we see UFC Rio soon. We already know that they’re planning events in Mexico City. Once Mexico is on board, UFC will have the platform that they need to expand to the rest of Latin America with canned Spanish language programming. Luso America will come at a higher cost, but the rewards are probably as large in Brazil as they are in the whole of the rest of Central and South America (considering Mexico to be part of their North American market).
Zuffa doesn’t have to win in Japan to win. They took Pride because they want to run those fighters up against their top fighters. They want to win over the fans who criticized them here and in Europe for not being able to compete with the “world class” “top rated” puff fighters in Japan.
But we’re seeing that that strategy failed before it could even happen. Some of Pride’s best known fighters have come over here and gotten more than a run for their money, other fighters who Pride devotees regard as 2nd rate in Pride have come over and look like they’re going to run the tables. Once you put these guys in real fights, all bets are off, and instead of facing up to that, Pride’s fans will just repeat “Fedor” “Fedor” over and over, knowing that he’s probably the one fighter who will never compete here, he’s their safe haven to continue to believe in the myth that Pride sold them and that they swallowed hook line and sinker.
I readily admit to not having watched mma for very long. So maybe one of the long time fans can explain to me why this debate even matters. Why is everyone still arguing about whether Pride is “better than” the UFC, or vice versa?
Who cares if the UFC has or Pride had better fights or fighters, if both orgs have fights and fighters most people enjoy watching? If one side or the other ‘wins’ this debate, what changes? If the Pride fans are right, does Pride come back a some international MMA powerhouse as the UFC whithers and dies? No. If the UFC fans are right does the former Pride management have to issue a public apology for their inferior product? Not so much.
Going forward, matchmaking and production and drug testing, etc, in the UFC will be discussed and debated ad infinitum. Pride may be useful as a point of comparison, but just because they were the other big name in the business.
What does it mean for one org to be ‘better’ than the other? Especially now.