I don’t think it has anything to do with FOX not “fully embracing all aspects of the sport”. I think it was just for first time viewers.

It’s very possible that people would be turned off by the sight of blood on the canvas before the one bout they were watching even began.

Just my 2 cents.

that pops up on primetime tv just as everybody and their grandma is tuning in, some blow back is gunna occur

I hope the new potential viewership will be able to get over the whole blood thing. The cuts themselves are usually only very superficial, so it’s not like the dude is in any huge danger… however, actually seeing someone’s face gush blood is very off-putting to viewers used to sports where no blood is ever seen.

Grisly gross drippy bloody stuff has been around on primetime shows for a while now (I guess CSI was the first to really spearhead that stuff), so hopefully people don’t get their stomachs turned over watching what is easily the greatest sport currently. It’s always different when it’s real, though.

I personally never had a problem with the blood when I first watched MMA (this would be around 2008) because it’s made quite obvious that the cut is really just an inconvenience rather than actual damage. The only time I’ve really felt nauseated by combat sports is when I watched Vale Tudo / NHB stuff without realized just how brutal they got back then. Scary stuff sometimes.

There’s an inherent honesty to MMA… there’s no disguising the damage or playing down the fact that a guy just had his carotid arteries squeezed until he almost blacked out. It’s refreshing, but demands facing that particular aspect of reality. It seems somewhat unfortunate that this attribute which in my opinion makes MMA really quite special is the attribute that is steadily being downplayed. Painting over blood on the canvas, come on that is just fucking symbolism like whoa.

I don’t see why people get so turned off by it, blood happens. That having been said, my mom gets a little nauseous if one of the fighters starts bleeding and can’t watch.

for sanitary reasons along with the look. keep the mat looking fresh.

We used to spray the boxing ring with OxiClean and rub a cloth on it once and that Sh*t was gone. Paint why?

Instead of Bendo – Guida, they should have showed Joe Daddy vs. BJ

MMAFighting’s Ben Fowlkes shares his thoughts on the topic:

Apparently the UFC and FOX felt that network TV viewers could handle seeing blood if it was coming out of a human being, but old plasma left over from the night’s previous bouts was more than they could bear. So after the Guida-Henderson bout had concluded and before dos Santos and Velasquez took the cage, a small crew of workers got out the paint and heat gun and erased those bloodstains before the FOX cameras caught sight of them. The thing is, the mat wasn’t even all that bloody. Sure, after nine fights some of the red stuff had spilled, but we’ve seen much worse inside the Octagon. Those “millions of new viewers” haven’t though, and as White said in the post-fight press conference, the UFC is looking to “ease into this.” Even if it means choking the poor cageside photographers with paint fumes.

And I hadn’t really seen a serious fight, I could understand somebody being bothered by the fact that there was blood already staining the canvas, before the fight had even started. If you don’t see where the blood came from, then it’s just mystery blood, which is a little unsettling.

Well, so they wanted the mat clean and fresh for their network debut. I have a hard time finding anything at all wrong with that.

is it exactly. Why wouldn’t they want everything to look shiny and new for the Fox broadcast?

As those who see nothing wrong with this, and regard it as a sensible and understandable production choice.

It is far from some subtle attack on an important aspect of the sport.