Post#23 » by Bernman » Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:31 pm
I can understand people who just follow UFC having their interest dwindle at this point. Zuffa has a virtual monopoly when it comes to attention and to some degree have the strong majority of established talent to warrant that. That's led them to stop driving to appease fans. Their motivations are making money and world domination. They feel like they've achieved those things through the names they've put on their tombstone and having no rivaling competition anymore to cut significantly into their market share. That means they feel they can now serve the fans and fighters just about anything and they have to accept it because there is little for alternatives.
For fighters, they receive long, incentive-laden, low base salary entry level deals until they've established themselves as a draw for quite a while (my favorite fighter, Anthony Pettis, still only gets 10/10). Also, they get a huge cut taken out of their individual sponsorship revenue (aren't they and their managers working to make those deals themselves and don't they own their own bodies?).
For the fans, we receive diluted cards carried by one fight, and a mockery is made of titles, but when we complain about it, instead of catering to the consumers they lash out at them because they feel like they have leverage ala against the fighters, and their rise up against foes has made them delusional egomaniacs.
This is where Bellator comes in for me. I can personally enjoy Bellator right now because I like where their going and have always been able to enjoy prospects in sports. I like seeing athletes and human beings realize their potential, as well as seeing them when they are young, hungry, and at their physical peaks. I don't need them to have fully proven they are elite already, or be told they are by an aggressive salesman, to care.
If you're the type of fan who needs to have more assurance that you are watching the best athletes going in to get invested, I don't view that as a negative. How much time and money you want to or have to spend on entertainment is a personal thing, as well as how much variety you require.
Regardless if you are the type of fan mentioned above, that's where I think the #2 promotion, Bellator, making a move to Spike in a couple months, will probably be huge for the overall interest in MMA. If nothing else having a competing organization will drive the UFC to be better and make decisions to appease fans. While for others it will increase the amount of interesting match-ups available to us. And there is the outside chance at least that Bellator could overtake Zuffa, and if they do, be more considerate of fans and fighters when they do. We do know what the current #1 organization is providing to the sport of MMA when they have the power.
Note: Quickly responding to those who take umbrage with fans only following MMA and not other combat sports.... I used to watch boxing semi regularly from about the late 90's to early 00's until I discovered MMA. Well, I was aware of it before, but not exposed to much, and what little I was I didn't understand. Once I started understanding MMA, boxing lost all appeal to me. I haven't watched a single boxing match since 2004 when Casamayor got robbed against Corrales (one of the many times Casamayor got robbed in his prime). It wasn't so much that at that point I thought boxing was corrupt (although many people in it are), but it only took one moment of disgust to exhaust my interest from the little I had at that point. From that point on my response was always why doesn't the guy just take him down and work for subs if he's losing on the feet, or throw some kicks, knees, and elbows in for variety. There are many more facets to MMA. And I don't at heart like guys beating each other's brains in. The extent to which it happens in MMA is a means to an end for me and that's why I'm a big advocate of earlier than later stoppages.
