Sports Writers on UFC 118: Mainstream Breakdowns Show Why UFC Is a Niche Promotion

As popular as the UFC and mma has become in such a short period of time, I just don’t believe that it will ever be close to the big 3 of pro sports. As negative as that sounds I just don’t see it happening. MMA is basically what soccer and hockey are in America but to a slightly lesser extent.

He admitted that he needed to see more for a final opinion. He didn’t care for fighters like Edgar and Maynard wrestling themselves to victory.

Some more quotes – http://www.csnne.com/pages/video?PID=V79A0gv_IzdfTBZ4qe64i7N4T0iFdAWa

“In all honesty, I’m just telling the truth. The biggest revelation I got from spending that evening at the Garden was how astonishingly BOOOOORRING this thing is,” Ryan said CSN’s New England’s “Sports Tonight”. “It is the most overrated … I do not remotely understand the appeal. There isn’t enough blood, there isn’t enough action.”

“The fans don’t like the wrestling,” said Ryan.

“Most of the fights in the early bouts, are guys in wrestling matches in which they were bad collegiate wrestling with nothing happening.”

An analogy I like to use is offensive and defensive line play in football.

If all you could watch was that one part of the football game would it be as compelling?

I mean, I like watching to see where guards pull and how/when defense use stunts but it’s not exactly the most exciting thing.

That’s sort of what MMA is like. The grappling is something that most casual sports fans won’t grasp easily and that is such a significant part of MMA that its difficult.

They’re all like the elderly: if they don’t understand the sport after a cursory viewing they get confused, if they get confused they get grumpy, if they get grumpy they become impatient and claim “it’s just not for me” and unfortunately people will take that opinion as their own and never get MMA a fair chance.

Whatever happened to due dilligence research?

will never fully understand or truly appreciate our sport.

Frankly, after watching an evening of UFC, up close and personal, I came away with a better appreciation of boxing.

Funny after watching boxing, I come away thanking god for MMA.

But kneeing and elbowing are prime tactics, and, c’mon, what’s so artistic about that?

Fighting isn’t art most sports aren’t. This guy comes to a UFC looking for art, well no it’s not made for you.

These writers are reacting to UFC 118. Aside from Lauzon, Couture, and maybe Diaz or Dan Miller, the event on the whole was pretty dull.

Lentz, Maia, Maynard, and Edgar were all long, drawn out decisions that weren’t very exciting. No surprise that Bob Ryan or others are coming to these conclusions.

So maybe UFC 118 didn’t do the trick for Bob Ryan. But perhaps he tunes in for UFC 121, and there is fast-paced, exciting grappling, and just like that you’ve got a new fan.

I don’t think it’s impossible to convert a guy like him, rather that all the stars need to align… you need big names, good action, and he needs to happen to tune in. UFC 118 just wasn’t the right event.

Again, the ignorance of these guys like Chris Mannix astounds me. Lulls on the ground? Educate yourself on the ground game and there will be less “lulls”. So he basically wants nothing but stand up battles because that is the only aspect of fighting that he can comprehend.

As you said (very well BTW) being viewed alongside football and basketball is probably a pipe dream, and that is fine. I don’t want that.

What I do want is more coverage in total, and by people who know the sport. While Mannix and many others don’t like the lulls on the ground, even he said he understands guys are working for holds.

As such, standing them up eliminates that action and makes MMA all the more like boxing or kickboxing or muay thai and that isn’t the point. This sport is an amalgamation of those (and others) and while it doesn’t have to be accepted and appreciated by all, it has to at least be allowed to exist in it’s own style without watering it down and stripping away elements to appease people who don’t really like it in the first place.

I don’t worry about the Bob Ryans of the world any more because they are the old guard and they’re on their way out.

A small part of why I love this sport is because it is something not everyone understands / appreciate / likes.

Great piece, Jonathan…

Toney obviously brought in more viewers for this card, you guys can call him a joke or whatever (honestly for MMA, he is), but he definitely brought in more viewers to MMA that would probably never have watched it otherwise. I’m sure a good chunk of the ‘new’ viewers for this card did not enjoy it, but there is a potential lower percentage that probably enjoyed it and will end up buying other cards. Sometimes the MMA community is too greedy, you cannot become a powerhouse sport over night. MMA is still new (compared to the history of other sports) to be considered among the other major sports, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get there in the near future. We’re growing, slowly and steady, give it another decade or so and the sport will most likely get the recognition it deserves. These journalists do represent most of these ‘new’ viewers, but not all. slow and steady I say we’ll get there…

If MMA gets as big as the big 3 Ball sports, it’d be come diluted and lose alot of what makes it special. Let the old timers think what they want. They grew up with Boxing and will probably never fully embrace any combat sport outside of it. This isn’t for everyone and never will be. We know how great this sport is, and nothing else should really matter.

To become a fan of the sport, someone first has to become a fan of a fighter. After that, the appreciation for the nuances will increase.

Sports Writers on UFC 118: Mainstream Breakdowns Show Why UFC MMA Is a Niche Promotion Sport

First of all if you want to be even close to right you need to lead in with the caveat “in the America…” Because. for instance, in Canada MMA is already mainstream. On WEC/UFC fight nights, highlights of the fights usually lead off the show/are in the first few minutes of our various versions of Sportscenter. the UFC prelims are not only on spike here but on a major sports network, as are the UFC on versus shows and Bellator. Think MMAlive, but two different versions during primetime on two of the major sports networks. Everyone knows who GSP is, etc etc etc. I can go on. For 34+ million people, MMA is mainstream.

Then the even bigger problem is using crusty old sports reporters as your barometer. Right now, assuming the viewing party and bar numbers are close to accurate (and if i’m recalling all the numbers correctly), more people watch a UFC then do so some NBA or MLB playoff games. No ones opinions is gonna change that.

Don’t get me wrong, MMA has a long way to go to be a truly mainstream sport in much of the world, but for all the cries of “boring” or “barbaric”, the numbers tell teh story of a UFC show watched by millions and new fans being made time and time again. For a sport in it’s infancy, MMA is in much better shape then most others were.

..is not for everyone.

The “boring” problem isn’t a problem. The problem is that people don’t get it. Football is a bunch of dudes throwing a ball to each other, running around, and occasionally getting jumped on. It’s boring if you don’t get it. If (when) MMA gains a loyal fanbase, it’s not going to be boring.

And violence? Pfft. There is nothing more magnetic than violence.

What irks me about the ‘mainstream media’ is the pure lack of education on the sport – Bob Ryan has a wealth of knowledge on baseball, football, and basketball, but brings absolutely ZERO to the table when covering MMA.

When I spent some time in Europe and asked the barkeep to put on the NFL, the patrons mocked this ‘stupid American game’ that started/stopped seemingly every 15 seconds… the Irish hated American football simply because they had no idea what they were watching, the skillset involved, the goal of the game, etc.

Comparing MMA to a barroom brawl proves that Ryan has never really experienced either one, seeing a barroom brawl is typically filed with overweight drunks who wouldnt last 10 seconds inside the cage with anyone of these elite athletes…

Frankly, after watching an evening of UFC, up close and personal, I came away with a better appreciation of boxing.

I thought the Diaz / Davis fight and the Penn / Edgar fight were great examples of striking in MMA. The rest of the card wasn’t the most exciting, but I was surprised the boxing people had that much negative feedback given those two fights.

I don’t give the spelling lessons, they should stay away from my sport.

End of story.

hahahaha

Dinosaurs like Ryan and Kornheiser will never embrace MMA, and neither will the majority of the American male population that remembers boxing’s heyday. However, to put it bluntly, the numbers of the recalcitrant and conservative that are that old are thinning every day.

This is a long term project, the sport is already larger than anyone ever anticipated, and we haven’t hit the ceiling yet.

One thing that has to be mentioned is that this is the age of the Internet. I think it’s no coincidence that mma has taken off at the same time as the Internet. You don’t have to have ESPN to be successful. As time goes on and technology advances reliance on traditional media only becomes less necessary. The Bob Ryans are not going to be replaced with new columnists at print media outlets. They are being replaced with the Luke Thomas’ on the internet. Luke still uses a traditional radio station for his radio show, but, how long until that takes place solely on the Internet?

The age of the Internet is the age of the niche. I wonder if there will be a new NFL of any kind. People can find whatever they want on the Internet. To the extent they can’t they can create it without having to kiss the ring of the all mighty federal government. At. Least as it is today. But that’s another topic.

And unfortunately 118 badly needed Rivera/Sakara and Marquardt/Palhares. Basically Rivera/Sakara was a guaranteed KO and Marquardt/Palhares could result in limb loss.

Definitely better than Winner/Lentz or Maia/Miranda.

simply because it is a combat sport. I really believe there is a ceiling for combat sports, because fighting is just something that a percentage of the population will never embrace. They simply look at it as violence and they will never accept it. Add this to the fact that plenty of people, including many casual fans, don’t appreciate the ground game and think it’s boring. Will MMA get bigger? Sure. There’s plenty of room for growth, but I sincerely doubt it’ll ever reach the heights Dana White wants it to. Getting an appreciation for a touchdown is not the same as getting an appreciation for how one dude punches another dude in the face. Not by a long shot. To many people, it’s just not digestable.

The scheduling of Machida/Rampage in Michigan is instructive. If the only goals were gate, PPV sales and revenue, that fight would never ever ever be in Michigan. But spurring interest and creating new fans in virgin territories is a long term strategy aimed at eclipsing where we already are.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I think the UFC’s mix on events, promotion, marketing, fight making and (yes, manufactured and actual) controversy is absolutely brilliant.

I’m a big fan of mma but jesus when the UFC intro hits the screen I can’t help but feel I’m too old for this shit. Cheesy mall core metal, flames etc… Luckily it all still gets better when the fights starts.

The difference is that baseball is often enjoyed by people who don’t want to invest that time and effort, whereas the direction MMA is going tends to alienate those fans.

American football and basketball don’t really have intricacies to learn (indeed, the NFL doesn’t want you to learn the intricacies of the sport – if they’d did they make their rulebook freely available like MLB does)

Really, if there’s another sport like MMA that attracts fans who want to learn all about it, but alienates those who don’t, it’s Formula One. F1 fans know an absurd amount about the technical details of those cars and all the arcane rules that govern them (this is a sport that has hearings to determine what the difference is between a hole and an edge), much as MMA fans know exactly where not to place your hand when in someone’s guard.

Can people stop using baseball as some sort of comparison? They aren’t remotely analogous even in the context they’re being framed in.

It’s not a matter of education, it’s a matter of how MMA (more particularly “Ultimate Fighting”) is presented to new comers. If your going to sell this “as real as it gets” sport, I doubt you’d be enticing people with a highlight package of Fitch, Maynard, and Rashad’s ground game. You’d be showing Shad KO Lidell, a Rampage powerbomb or two and Wand’s screaming face. Comparing the action to any other sport is irrelevant as the sport itself is marketed as action more so than a sport. When we get the feeling that a guy stalled to win instead of risking advancing his position to dominate a guy, we fell let down. Nothing will change that, unless the refs start standing up guys after 30 seconds of not attempting to go for a sub or mount.