[Commissar]

Originally Posted by ganderson

WELL phrased articulation of what many die hard fans are thinking but I have to point out that it is wrong in many aspects




This TUF no TUF is silly, it’s almost as silly a tying in rapes to ice cream consumption. Every single issue you mention can be isolated independent of TUF.

BJ pen - was not a TUF era but is whined about constantly be sherdoggers

Lind land - this is the second time he has been replaced, for the same reason, for being boring (at least that is the real reason) again if it already happened pre TUF how can it be TUF related?

The release of Frank Trigg is no different than the release of Sean shark (an arguably boring fighter who lost his title shot) except he is a more exciting fighter and therefore got more chances, he got 2 title shots, and he is in a stacked division, again there is no relation to TUF.

Ivan Slavery - this is arguable the only TUF related incident.

Pride cuts fighters all the time, you can't take a bunch of unrelated explainable incidents and call it a conspiracy to replace every good fighter with a TUF guy.

Diego Sanchez is a grappler - all his fights are grappling oriented - this kills your whole grappling oriented fights right there - u need to distinguish Lnp and grappling - many hardcore fans find Lind land boring - it is not just tuff noobs.

As far as losing hardcore fans this is pure statement with no fact - I am a hardcore fan and am going nowhere. Have you done a survey? If half the hardcore fans stay, while the geeks go running to the next underground fad and are replaced by double the new fans, what is so bad about that anyway?

TUF is a farm league; these guys are not fighting for belts and are up against lesser fighters right now. No one is pushing randy, chuck, matt, out the door to make room for these guys. The fighters that have left have left for the same reasons they left one, two, even three years ago. Salaries, losing, being boring - maybe a lot has happened at the same time, but this is really nothing new.

And by the way Pride has way more striking in it than the UFC, which has rules that favor the Lnp wrestler. So I don't get this whole Pride is the MMA purist while UFC now wants striking. Chuck is the champ because he deserves it not because of TUF. He was a take on all comers popular striker way before TUF was around, and it is now his time. Is Randy a striker or a grappler? He should have been a TUF era champ; he was the favorite to win. He got paid more than the champ for his last fight. Hell of a way to discourage grapplers for competing.

Fair enough, but everything has come to a head in the last year or so. Lets be honest, losing BJ Penn or Sherk damaged the division, but not the company as a whole. Now, however, they are losing top fighters in many divisions, and now it's finally piling up. The UFC, I believe, is reaching for entertainment, not quality. The reason they are reaching for entertainment, is to cash in on the popularity they are finally receiving. Now you ask, where are they getting the popularity from? The Ultimate Fighter. Therefore, the loss of Lindland, Salaverry, Penn, Trigg... are directly influenced by the popularity TUF is producing, so yes. They are directly related.

Diego Sanchez is somewhat a grappler, yes, but more in the style of Randy Couture. Casual MMA fans don't mind seeing one guy pinned down and just getting pounded on, against the cage. But they don't want to see armbars. Yes, Sanchez uses armbars and submissions, but I think it's evident he prefers GnP. Casual fans don't mind GnP. They don't like long, tactical grappling wars.

That said, watch Diego be dropped if he loses to Diaz.

The average person would prefer not to think, to decode each fighter's strategy. This would be why people might find a match, like Arona vs Henderson, or Horn vs Shamrock, boring. They'd prefer Buentello vs Eilers or, dare I say, Liddell vs Vernon White.

[PAKE1]

OK, let me try.

I think the TUF has had an overall negative impact on the UFC (there have been some positives). From what I hear the biggest posters saying, this is accepted as true, there is negatives but its necessary to move forward. Well how about this critique of Zuffas attempt to mainstream the UFC:

The TUF reality show initially came accross as a way to weed out a top fighter for weighclass x and y. The Ultimate Fighter is what it stands for right? It was probable that top fighters could be produced for what ever weightclass after several seasons. Drama, showing that mma fighters are human and all that stuff aside...the concept sounded good. Well, skipping a lot of specifics, what has happened is not only did it give 2 champions for the respected weightclasses but also a whole bunch of faces that "America" wanted to see in the octagon. Everyone from TUF got a chance to get in the Octogon and fight not just the winners. They also got to break into the UFC, some with more success than others and it appears that they also may stick around since they made a good showing. Everyone is happy, free mma, more mma, and Griffin Bonnar was the best gosh darn fight eva!

In the mean time contract UFC fighters get bumped some were favorites some were blah, but most were proven and got their shot the old fashioned way. They won fights. Other top contenders werent bumped but they gotta wait their time for a UFC appearance because the TUF fighters are on parade. In mma getting that SHOT to fight in the Octagon weather its the first time or a second, its a big deal and TUF guys are getting it. The other contenders are second string. Well some people are saying, its all necessary for mainstreaming mma. Not to mention the $ that comes from a mma reality cable show.

So whats my point? Too many mediocre fighters from what was supposed to be just 2. it bogs down the UFC and is not fair to the real contenders. Should Zuffa listen to the roaring dare i say "noob" crowds who want to see Leben and his amazing foot stomps or the hard core guys asking about David Terrell (I know he got injured) or Karo. Well so far its been TUF all the way. Could Zuffa have gone another route with a cable show?

How about taking the TUF on the road, showing Dana picking the top dogs from the feeder shows, matching the top guys from Gladiator Challenge vs Rumble on the Rock and taking the winners to the next UFC. Going from State to State profiling the fighters from AMC then ATT. Set up a fight with who looks good. The possibilities are endless and it would also give insight into the camps and personalities/coaches... No need for a Right Guard Challenge, living in the same house, pissing on beds and training together. C'mon, I had enough of the MTV Real World in college. Zuffa went with the TUF format as it is becasue it was quicker, easier and cheaper. Not better.

I am not a TUF or UFC hater in fact I love the ufc since ever since. I think Sanchez looks to have a good future, and I love a good fight. But lets not get fooled into thinking that Zuffa did it the best way they could all in the name of mainstream. Am I bitching? damn right. Am i right? dammmn bitch!

[Commissar]

I'd hate to bring it up, but I can directly link the TUF success to the media ban.

[creepingcharlie]

I would like to hear your theory.

[black-jack-shalack]

Originally Posted by Zeke's Chaingun

It wasn't from publicity if that is what you are trying to say.

Of course it was. Senator McCain admitted he had never watched a single MMA fight but was hell bent on banning it. Why? Because of the poor publicity. Ask anyone that doens't watch MMA and they will all tell you it's human cockfighting and all these people die etc... yet have no frame of refrence to base this crap on expect what they hear from the media. SEG's decision to sell the sport on being the bloodiest most dnagerous etc... form of fighting and anyone can die at any moment etc.. is how all that negative press started. If anyone ahd actually watched a MMA fight from back then they would be bored out of thier mind and wondering what all the hubbub was about.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by black-jack-shalack

Of course it was. Senator McCain admitted he had never watched a single MMA fight but was hell bent on banning it. Why? Because of the poor publicity. Ask anyone that doens't watch MMA and they will all tell you it's human cockfighting and all these people die etc... yet have no frame of refrence to base this crap on expect what they hear from the media. SEG's decision to sell the sport on being the bloodiest most dnagerous etc... form of fighting and anyone can die at any moment etc.. is how all that negative press started. If anyone ahd actually watched a MMA fight from back then they would be bored out of thier mind and wondering what all the hubbub was about.

Thank you

that was all i was trying to say as well - if no one had heard of it - it would have never been banned - but he said that was the most retarded thing he had ever heard

???

[Zeke's Chaingun]

Originally Posted by black-jack-shalack

Of course it was. Senator McCain admitted he had never watched a single MMA fight but was hell bent on banning it.

I understand that, but it wasn't the publicity that caused McCain to hate MMA. He didn't like it because of the rules it had. I refuse to believe McCain, even without actually watching the UFC, didn't at least look into the rules the UFC employed. If it was just the publicity saying it was a Bloodsport, but in reality it had sanctioned rules, then he wouldn't have done anything IMO. McCain, even though I really dislike the guy for his position on the UFC, isn't so stupid as to not at least do a little bit of checking into what the UFC was before going balls to the wall against it. The reason he went against it is because the reality was that it was a Bloodsport like he heard.

He heard about it from the publicity of course, but then again, so did we, and that's why the UFC survived. The UFC survived because we heard about it, we become fans, and we kept supporting it. So in the long haul, the UFC has survived and become more and more successful because through it's publicity it reached far more fans than opponants. If it had no publicity, then yeah, maybe McCain wouldn't have heard about it to go against it, but then again, maybe we wouldn't have heard about it either and therefore the sport could have died right then and there. So I stand by what I said. The publicity has worked FOR the UFC.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by Zeke's Chaingun

I understand that, but it wasn't the publicity that caused McCain to hate MMA. He didn't like it because of the rules it had. I refuse to believe McCain, even without actually watching the UFC, didn't at least look into the rules the UFC employed. If it was just the publicity saying it was a Bloodsport, but in reality it had sanctioned rules, then he wouldn't have done anything IMO. McCain, even though I really dislike the guy for his position on the UFC, isn't so stupid as to not at least do a little bit of checking into what the UFC was before going balls to the wall against it. The reason he went against it is because the reality was that it was a Bloodsport like he heard.

He heard about it from the publicity of course, but then again, so did we, and that's why the UFC survived. The UFC survived because we heard about it, we become fans, and we kept supporting it. So in the long haul, the UFC has survived and become more and more successful because through it's publicity it reached far more fans than opponants. If it had no publicity, then yeah, maybe McCain wouldn't have heard about it to go against it, but then again, maybe we wouldn't have heard about it either and therefore the sport could have died right then and there. So I stand by what I said. The publicity has worked FOR the UFC.

Damn CPU crashed and lost post so I will be brief for a change. In brief I think we are agreeing but beeing mules about it.

I think you are wrong about McCain, although I like him, he was very connected to boxing, and many politicians have jumped on bandwagons due to publicity not facts. And McCain was on the warpath even after SEC had shown a real willingness to regulate itself, with rules, weight classes etc. McCain softened his stance after many pro republican UFC fans contacted him and gave him the facts, and as he got distracted by the presidential nomination race.

I think the "no rules" thing may have increased the brand name recognition of the UFC. It is debatable whether the droves of freak show fans, who any stopped watching after realizing how "boring” provided any real long term benefit to the sport, but the UFC is more of a known name because of it, and that can't hurt. In that sense Zeke's is right.

But in the sense that is almost got it banned forever off of PPV and made me hang around the video store for three month old fights that started to really suck at the end of the ban, Zeke's is wrong, bad publicly can be bad, again to use a non UFC example just ask OJ Simpson.

[black-jack-shalack]

Originally Posted by Zeke's Chaingun

I understand that, but it wasn't the publicity that caused McCain to hate MMA. He didn't like it because of the rules it had. I refuse to believe McCain, even without actually watching the UFC, didn't at least look into the rules the UFC employed. If it was just the publicity saying it was a Bloodsport, but in reality it had sanctioned rules, then he wouldn't have done anything IMO. McCain, even though I really dislike the guy for his position on the UFC, isn't so stupid as to not at least do a little bit of checking into what the UFC was before going balls to the wall against it. The reason he went against it is because the reality was that it was a Bloodsport like he heard.

He heard about it from the publicity of course, but then again, so did we, and that's why the UFC survived. The UFC survived because we heard about it, we become fans, and we kept supporting it. So in the long haul, the UFC has survived and become more and more successful because through it's publicity it reached far more fans than opponants. If it had no publicity, then yeah, maybe McCain wouldn't have heard about it to go against it, but then again, maybe we wouldn't have heard about it either and therefore the sport could have died right then and there. So I stand by what I said. The publicity has worked FOR the UFC.

Noboby is concerned with the reality of the situation. McCain coudln't tell you what the rules where and still couldn't. WHen you hear people talk about the brutality of the UFC the biggest complaints are that you don't wear gloves, fishhooking, eye gauging etc.. all things that aren't correct. People don't let something as insignificant as the facts get in the way.

[LoverNotFighter]

it's important to remember how cultures play a difference in the popularity of the mma orgs. japan practically invented alot of the more popular martial arts that people now practice and they deeply embrace combat sports more than we in the US ever will.

competition between pride and the ufc is kind of silly because the old analogy held that you cant compare apples and oranges. in this case, the product is the same but you're comparing apple buyers to orange buyers. the product is the same overall but the consumers and the accompanying culture is quite different.