Is this the time for "UFC challengers?" (long read)
by BlueberryMuffin on Nov 13, 2009 5:13 PM EST
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Not so long ago, Joe Silva announced that they would down-size their roster to somewhere around 250 fighters. Soon thereafter fighters like Thales Leites and Jason McDonald were cut. But still… 250 fighters? That`s a lot.
Let`s do some quick 6th grade math here. There are about twelve numbered events a year, each hosting 9 fights in average. Add about six(?) Fight Nights to that and two TUF-finale`s a year, each with about nine fights. That`s 12+6+2 = 20 events. 20 x 9 = 180 fights. 180x2 = 360 fighter-slots a year. 360/250 = 1.44 That`s less than one and a half fight per fighter a year. Not a lot.
And in reality it is probably even less than that. A lot of the fight-slots are filled with newcomers slotted in through TUF, I`d say probably around 8-10 fighters a year (conservatively) getting in average two fights each. That`s another 20 fight-slots lost. Then another 5-10 fighters are externally recruited, taking another 20 slots. Which leaves us with 320/250 = 1.3 fights/fighter/year. 1.3!!! And that`s not including that many of the stars fight 2-4 times a year…
This might not seem as a problem for UFC, since they can cut and recruit fighters as they wish, but that is in the short term. It takes a while to build a fighter and that makes it very hard to motivate giving slots on a main-card or even on the undercard to up-and-comers or even to old-timers that have no relevance in the title picture. I think the severe shortage of main-eventers is due to this.
Another issue that I haven`t seen addressed as of yet is the age of the current main- or co-main-eventers. Randy Couture 46, Dan Henderson 39, Matt Hughes 36, Rich Franklin 35, Anderson Silva 35 just to mention a few of the old-timers… Secondly, a lot of the current generation of main-eventers are actually left-overs from the Pride-era, such as Fedor Emelianenko, Minotauro Nogueira, Wanderlei Silva, Rampage Jackson, Dan Henderson (again), Shogun Rua, or were created in the old-school era of UFC such as Rich Franklin (again), Vitor Belfort, Randy Couture (again).
Then what`s the solution to this problem? More UFC`s? More Fight Night`s? Maybe... But probably not. The risk by doing that would be to water-down the brand, creating sub-par UFC-fighters. You really want a UFC-fighter to be a force in any other organization if and when he`s cut. Besides, televising to many events would probably saturate the PPV-market.
I would instead suggest that they start, like Strikeforce has done, their feeding organization, the UFC Challengers. I would even go so far as to suggest that these events should NOT be televised, except for perhaps streaming it for 10 bucks or so, making it available for us hard-cores.
It seems such a waste by the UFC to give away guys like Gurgel, Leites and McDonald. What they do by releasing guys no longer competitive in UFC, but still better than most MMA-fighters out there is legitimize other organizations.
Others that will soon go down that road are fighters like Marcus Davis, Cris Lytle, Matt Serra, Chris Leben, Paul Taylor, James Irvin and so on. All of those could easily headline a local UFC-challengers, but none of those should, at the moment, take up space on one of the major UFC cards. It wouldalsobe the perfect place to grrom the stars of the future, such as Matt Riddle, Nick Ocipzak and Amir Sadollah. It`s likely that Zuffa wouldn`t make any money on these shows in the short-term, but on the other hand, they wouldn`t lose much either. With a fighter cost for an entire card of maybe around 100k, local sponsoring and low production costs, the loss would be less per event than Lesnar makes during his fight-entrance.
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It’s hard to think of an up-and-comer now who will be a great draw in 5 years. As you mentioned, most main eventers are aging and the UFC is making the basic economic mistake that has plagued systems like this for thousands of years, namely their lack of reinvestment into their own company. The product hasn’t changed in years and Dana White and Zuffa are trying as hard as they can to wring as much cash from every fighter they can. And when they’re not relevant (or won’t be in the foreseeable future) they get cut. It will only be a matter of time before this practice devolves the promotion into mediocrity. Unless there are some major changes in mainstream acceptance of MMA and the viewpoints evolve, most, if not all UFC events will be categorized (in my opinion) as sub-standard, with fewer and fewer draws. The card tomorrow is a perfect example of the kind of cards we can expect; decent fights, for sure, but nothing that would sell a ton of tickets.
I think your idea is a decent one, regarding “UFC Challengers.” The name is obviously terrible, but there’s an easier solution than creating a whole new brand. They just need to merge the lighter WEC weights into the UFC, and then put a bunch of B and C up-and-comers or down-and-downers (Coleman/Bonnar) under the WEC logo. Of course, the better draws would stay in the UFC. But if they were to compliment this move with a strong TV deal for the WEC (on Fox Sports or whatever, even though they just made a deal with Bellator I think? I’m not sure if that would prevent them from picking up the WEC also.)
forgot to finish
then it would be a smart move for the future.*
Anyways, rec’d for thought if nothing else.
Agreed. This is what I’ve been thinking as well. The solution is the WEC and they already have it, and a deal on a smaller network (Versus). If they add the heavier weight classes back in, they’ve got their “B” league, plus they can add potential stars like Faber, Torres, Aldo, Brown, etc. into the UFC to support or possibly even headline cards.
I also wonder how the UFC is going to balance their American base with the need to collect the best upcoming fighters, many of which may not come from thestandard UFC base of American/Brazilian fighters. It’s been quite a while since a TUF class produced a batch of new talent with the potential to challenge for a title. Maybe some of these guys will progress into that role eventually, but most of the top fighters in each division have either been with the UFC or Pride for years, or like Machida, have at least been competing for a long time at international events. I doubt they will, but the UFC can’t afford to get complacent right now. The sport has grown a ton in popularity in the last few years, but the UFC needs to solidify it’s hold as the main beneficiary of the MMA boom, by investing deeply in good scouting and recruiting for the next generation of talent, and they’ve got to do a better job dealing with the fact that a lot of these fighters may not be English speakers. I think the prototype they’ve established in the U.K. is a good one, but they’re going to have to make it work in non-English speaking countries in order to continue the kind of expansion Dana is projecting. Australia, maybe Israel? are good next steps though.
by Kwisatz Haderach on Nov 14, 2009 4:20 AM EST up reply actions
Very good points...
I have brought this up before:
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/6/11/906243/aging-mma-big-nog-to-retire-next
Possibly Couture, Nog, Chuck, Hendo, Cro Cop and even Anderson Silva may all call it quits in the next year or two, not to mention that now Rampage is saying that he is done with MMA.
Then you get to those that are in limbo (in terms of their careers) like Franklin, Coleman, Tito, Chuck, and Wandy. TUF recently just hasn’t been able to produce the stars needed to produce main event type of fighters for the near future.
How the UFC replaces those aging draws will be HUGE, and like you said, if they are milking them for everything they have before they are gone, it takes some spotlights away from possible future stars.
Disagree
Half the “stars” you listed were never draws. Guys like Hendo, Cro Cop, Coleman and even Silva have never drawn big audiences.
As for the rest lets wait and see. Couture, Ortiz, Hughes, and Franklin all just signed new contracts so they arent going anywhere fast.
Then you have other stars like Lesnar, Machida (proving to be more of a draw than anticapated), GSP,and BJ that are all relatively young.
I’ve said this before and Ill say it again the UFC does need to market their fighters but five years ago if I would have told you Lesnar, GSP, and Evans would be headlining huge UFC PPV’s you would have laughed at me but yet here we are.
bouts per year
your estimate was pretty good. here are some exact numbers for what it’s worth:
UFC bouts
2008: 201
2009: 173 to date + 38 more scheduled = 211
www.tapology.com | twitter @tapology
There are about twelve numbered events a year, each hosting 9 fights in average. Add about six(?) Fight Nights to that and two TUF-finale`s a year, each with about nine fights. That`s 12+6+2 = 20 events. 20 × 9 = 180 fights. 180×2 = 360 fighter-slots a year. 360/250 = 1.44 That`s less than one and a half fight per fighter a year. Not a lot.
-This hasn’t been true in a while now. 10-12 fights per card is now the norm and UFC 103 actually had 13. With two fights being allotted to Spike TV before PPV cards now it seems like that trend won’t be reversing. I’d guess that 2010 will average at least 11 fights per card. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if they started doing more than 20 cards a year but I guess we’ll see.
Anyway, 20 * 11 = 220 fights = 440 fighter slots. 440/250 = 1.76 fights a year. I wouldn’t factor in “new fighter slots from TUF” if they are serious about the 250 fighter slots, since that will mean they will be firing people as they hire new people. The UFC hires and releases fighters all the time. That they’ll be hiring mainly from TUF for two periods a year won’t significantly affect the average.
Anyway 1.76 fights a year is still below what would be preferable but it’s not 1.3 fights a year either. Also the UFC could very well do more than 20 shows next year. 22 shows at 11 fights a show would mean 242 shows, which is 1.936 fights per fighter if they have an average of 250 contracted fighters.
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