NoStatsGuy wrote:what i read between the lines, could be totally wrong, is that the UFC is obviously in the Trump/Rightwing camp and so are many of the UFCs fans, while Anik is probably more left leaning. I think Anik gets a lot of terrible DMs on social media.
And i gotta be honest, im very far off being a woke guy, but some of the things they say and the way they (strickland, dana, etc.) talk about politics and all that is very off putting. while they have some good points for sure, the way they present them is not it. And i think thats one of the major gripes lots of people have these days with the ufc. i personally find it very sad, that the UFC has become so political. almost every press conference, every interview drifts towards a political discussion sooner or later. And i think many of Seans fans are his fans because of his politcal views, not specifically because of his fighting skills or otherwise funny personality.
im just assuming and as i said, it could be totally wrong. but thats how i percieve it
Yeah, the UFC owners/Dana/etc. are genuinely friendly with Trump and co, which is understandable to some extent. Trump embraced the UFC when it was struggling and most venues wouldn't host its events. But the crazy thing is that the reason they were banned from so many venues was because politicians trashed it as not a sport. They considered it some savage stuff, John McCain called it Human cockfighting, and a lot of states outright banned it for one reason or another (New York banned UFC into the 00s thanks to lobbying from the Culinary Union of all things).
UFC History Rant coming, feel free to jump to the more modern section:So, for most of the early days in UFC, they fought to look legitimate. Nick Diaz and Joe Riggs were popular fighters who got into a scuffle at a hospital after an event, and they were banned "for life" from the UFC. The image actually meant something. MMA fans wanted it to be treated like a sport, and it took a bunch of rules changes and effort to earn any respect at all.
That makes UFC embracing controversial figures a bit tough to deal with. There have been bad guys all along, from Kimo Leopold at UFC 2 to Tito Ortiz beefing with the Lion's Den at the dawn of the TUF era. But the drama over talent thing really kicked off post-McGregor. Conor was actually a genuinely great fighter before the fame got to him. But his press conferences drew fame and infamy that exploded his popularity. Since then, the UFC loves a drama troll and the sport has hinged closer to WWE with hints of boxing self-interests disrupting the best fighting the best.
So for a while you'd have one or two truly bad people. Chael Sonnen insulting Brazilians; Michael Bisping embracing the hate from Americans as the Foreign bad guy. But they were genuinely elite fighters who had fought the BEST and beaten many of those guys. Bisping was the only clean fighter in a division full of juice-heads. Sonnen was the only fighter honest about TRT (if y'all ever want to hear a rant about the legal steroid era, I could tell you some stories).
Back to the modern era:Now you've got examples of unranked dudes like Cody Durden yelling "Go back to China" after his first UFC win. Colby Covington and Sean Strickland are quality fighters, but they were pretty famous for being boring in the octagon until they got controversial. Suddenly, they had fans clamoring to watch and a UFC push for ratings.
It's personality over substance...to be fair, my guy Nate Diaz also got overrated over his personality but at least he was always an exciting fighter. Colby almost got cut for being so boring. Sean's got 4 finishes in a 20-fight UFC career. Colby has 2 finishes in his last 11 fights (aka: since he moved up to decent competition). There are examples of popular fighters who didn't get a ton of finishes, but they were typically earning fight bonuses or beating ELITE guys. Sean and Colby's resumes are mid, with very few bonus-worthy performances. Nobody used to hype up those kinds of fighters.
All that is to say, I don't necessarily think politics is the problem. It's courting controversy. But the controversial stuff sells, and UFC is done worrying about its image. Dana White's promoting Slap Fights on his offdays
