Fun time to be an MMA fan

[FrankieNYC]

I know a lot of fans tend to "hate-watch", but it is really a great time to be a fan
Two great UFC cards back to back
Big fights on the horizon that will get MMA more in the mainstream
Bellator has the semis & final of HW, plus the new tourney starting
Bellator gets a distribution deal that gets them in the black & healthy
UFC makes ESPN pay more attention to MMA & they are pretty much guaranteed huge profit years the next 5 (after this)

 

[member 603]

I agree partially.... Personal opinion, the overall marketing of MMA, how the organizations choose to market/promote their cards and fighters, the matchmaking, and the production of the product all need severe overhauls.

Whether it's the "legends matchups" Bellator seems to favor, or the "let's dick ride Conor no matter what he does, and make a every fight a interim title fight" that the UFC puts out, or the bullshit pro wrestling-esque fake characters they try to push.... MMA needs to bring back that bushido code to its product.

 

[jason73]

there was a great rizin even last weekend. pancrase tonight and another rizin card next weekend

 

[Wild]

I am most looking forward to the Bellator WW tournament. That thing is going to be so much fun to watch play out.

 

[Haulport]

Fun time to be an MMA fan
I know a lot of fans tend to "hate-watch", but it is really a great time to be a fan
Two great UFC cards back to back
Big fights on the horizon that will get MMA more in the mainstream
Bellator has the semis & final of HW, plus the new tourney starting
Bellator gets a distribution deal that gets them in the black & healthy
UFC makes ESPN pay more attention to MMA & they are pretty much guaranteed huge profit years the next 5 (after this)

That is some powerfully OPTIMISTIC shit right there, LOL...

This is, without a doubt, THE WORST time to be an MMA fan imo and I have been watching since before UFC 1 (weird ass, low-end "Free Fight" tapes from the Netherlands and super shitty Shooto tapes from China Town in NYC).

• UFC cards are basically Gladiator Challenge/King of The Ring level fighters on the same card as 1 or two fights from top line, ready-for-prime-time world contenders.
• Their is no pageantry, mystery or true excitement around any promotion. It is all just hoping for a good fight here or there.
• There is nothing to look forward to like big time tourneys.
• The fighters all fight exactly the same and almost everyone avoids the ground game so we are left with shitty kickboxing by a bunch of tatted up creeps. Almost no real innovators in the cage/ring except for Jones who imploded.
• The rules are complete crap and now ONE has gotten rid of soccer kicks and RIZIN has 5 min first rounds. It is just cookie-cutter, imitation crap of a promotion whose rules were written by a bunch of know-nothing boxing jerks and whose presentation was creating by a boxercise jerk-off.

 

[Haulport]

Sorry fellas....had to say it...

 

[FrankieNYC]

Sorry fellas....had to say it...

Here is a show for you to watch instead of MMA

 

[Super Dave]

The current state of mma has driven me to watch athletes "fake punch" each other for my entertainment.

The results may be predetermined but I'm less frustrated and disappointed.

 

[Super Dave]

The current state of mma has driven me to watch athletes "fake punch" each other for my entertainment.

The results may be predetermined but I'm less frustrated and disappointed.

Having said that, anyone still enjoying mma these days more power to you!

 

[TheEmperorRises]

Lined up, we have-

Conor vs Khabib. Biggest fight of the year, hands down. The hype will be insane.

Fedor vs Sonnen. Dream match up (in that I've always dreamed of seeing Fedor smash Sonnens face and shut his mouth).

Mousasi vs MacDonald. Champion vs Champion, with both still in their prime.

MVP vs Daley. Years worth of trash talk will finally be settled. And neither gives a shit to wrestle, so it should be fireworks .

DC vs Brock. Does Brock deserve it? Nope. Will it be fun to watch? Of course. So I'm in.

Korean Zombie vs Frankie Edgar. Two guys with heart for days, fighting for the chance to move up in a stacked division.


And potentially we could have fights like-

Chandler vs Pitbull. As it stands right now, they are both tied for most wins in Bellator history, and they would both love the chance to fight each other.

Tenshin vs Horiguchi. They've both hinted that this could be on the horizon. Kickboxing match for now, maybe MMA later.

Romero’s LHW debut. I know they're trying to match him up with Costa, but he should be at LHW, and it would be great to see him fighting at full strength- no energy depleting weight cut that he misses anyways.

Adesanya vs Costa. Fight to see whose the next big thing at MW.

 

[TheEmperorRises]

Sorry fellas....had to say it...

 

[jason73]

Lined up, we have-

Conor vs Khabib. Biggest fight of the year, hands down. The hype will be insane.

Fedor vs Sonnen. Dream match up (in that I've always dreamed of seeing Fedor smash Sonnens face and shut his mouth).

Mousasi vs MacDonald. Champion vs Champion, with both still in their prime.

MVP vs Daley. Years worth of trash talk will finally be settled. And neither gives a shit to wrestle, so it should be fireworks .

DC vs Brock. Does Brock deserve it? Nope. Will it be fun to watch? Of course. So I'm in.

Korean Zombie vs Frankie Edgar. Two guys with heart for days, fighting for the chance to move up in a stacked division.


And potentially we could have fights like-

Chandler vs Pitbull. As it stands right now, they are both tied for most wins in Bellator history, and they would both love the chance to fight each other.

Tenshin vs Horiguchi. They've both hinted that this could be on the horizon. Kickboxing match for now, maybe MMA later.

Romero’s LHW debut. I know they're trying to match him up with Costa, but he should be at LHW, and it would be great to see him fighting at full strength- no energy depleting weight cut that he misses anyways.

Adesanya vs Costa. Fight to see whose the next big thing at MW.

no way do they let horiguchi anywhere near the golden boy tenshin

 

[TheEmperorRises]

no way do they let horiguchi anywhere near the golden boy tenshin

I think you're underestimating Japan. Look at who they matched Sakuraba up with.

 

[ShakaSway]

The current state of mma has driven me to watch athletes "fake punch" each other for my entertainment.

The results may be predetermined but I'm less frustrated and disappointed.

Thats exactly why I started watching wrassling again. Think it was a Conor promo. Had a realization; “I can watch this...all the time!” And at least it fits there. UFC partaking in forced storylines annoys me.

 

[Haulport]

Lined up, we have-

Conor vs Khabib. Biggest fight of the year, hands down. The hype will be insane.

Fedor vs Sonnen. Dream match up (in that I've always dreamed of seeing Fedor smash Sonnens face and shut his mouth).

Mousasi vs MacDonald. Champion vs Champion, with both still in their prime.

MVP vs Daley. Years worth of trash talk will finally be settled. And neither gives a shit to wrestle, so it should be fireworks .

DC vs Brock. Does Brock deserve it? Nope. Will it be fun to watch? Of course. So I'm in.

Korean Zombie vs Frankie Edgar. Two guys with heart for days, fighting for the chance to move up in a stacked division.


And potentially we could have fights like-

Chandler vs Pitbull. As it stands right now, they are both tied for most wins in Bellator history, and they would both love the chance to fight each other.

Tenshin vs Horiguchi. They've both hinted that this could be on the horizon. Kickboxing match for now, maybe MMA later.

Romero’s LHW debut. I know they're trying to match him up with Costa, but he should be at LHW, and it would be great to see him fighting at full strength- no energy depleting weight cut that he misses anyways.

Adesanya vs Costa. Fight to see whose the next big thing at MW.

As I stated, all these fights will be on separate cards and you will have to watch just one fight or slog thru a King of the Cage card to get to it. And I see these these fights as:

• Mousasi vs MacDonald - Rory is a big 170 who has lost to inferior strikers with decent wrestling like Robbie. Moose will eat his lunch.
  
• Fedor vs. Sonnen - 2 guys who should be retired.
• Conor vs. Khabib - Khabib has no chance except to LnP Conor which he is terribly capable of.

 

[MachidaKarate]

I feel, in a lot of ways, like my interest in MMA has been on life support for a good five years now. I first started paying attention to the sport in 2006 and quite quickly got really, really into it. If MMA was on, I was watching. UFC, WEC, EliteXC, Strikeforce, Affliction . . . whatever. If there was a live mixed martial arts broadcast available and I wasn't asleep, I was watching that shit.

Things began to turn for me around 2013 though. Making sure to be home and on the couch any time there was an MMA event began to no longer feel like an urgent necessity. I started skipping prelims, and eventually I was to the point of often only watching the main and co-main, and sometimes skipping entire events altogether.

I often wonder what changed. Did the newness just wear off, weakening the sport's spell over me? Was is too many watered down cards? Was it all the injuries that lead to canceled fights?

Did the sport change or did I change?

Probably some of both. These days my interest ebbs and flows. Some times I am more into it than others. I definitely don't pay nearly as much attention to it as I once did, but I also never fall away completely.

I think one thing MMA needs is some new ideas. The million dollar tournament that PFL is doing is kind of cool, but it's not enough. Something needs to be done on the production side of things. We need more pageantry and for events to really feel like EVENTS. We probably also need fewer cards and the UFC needs to get back to a place where their titles actually mean something.

I'm not sure exactly what the fix is, but I'm always hoping that some upstart promotion is going to come out of nowhere doing something that feels fresh and new.

 

[jason73]

I feel, in a lot of ways, like my interest in MMA has been on life support for a good five years now. I first started paying attention to the sport in 2006 and quite quickly got really, really into it. If MMA was on, I was watching. UFC, WEC, EliteXC, Strikeforce, Affliction . . . whatever. If there was a live mixed martial arts broadcast available and I wasn't asleep, I was watching that shit.

Things began to turn for me around 2013 though. Making sure to be home and on the couch any time there was an MMA event began to no longer feel like an urgent necessity. I started skipping prelims, and eventually I was to the point of often only watching the main and co-main, and sometimes skipping entire events altogether.

I often wonder what changed. Did the newness just wear off, weakening the sport's spell over me? Was is too many watered down cards? Was it all the injuries that lead to canceled fights?

Did the sport change or did I change?

Probably some of both. These days my interest ebbs and flows. Some times I am more into it than others. I definitely don't pay nearly as much attention to it as I once did, but I also never fall away completely.

I think one thing MMA needs is some new ideas. The million dollar tournament that PFL is doing is kind of cool, but it's not enough. Something needs to be done on the production side of things. We need more pageantry and for events to really feel like EVENTS. We probably also need fewer cards and the UFC needs to get back to a place where their titles actually mean something.

I'm not sure exactly what the fix is, but I'm always hoping that some upstart promotion is going to come out of nowhere doing something that feels fresh and new.

come watch rizin with us on saturday bro

 

[MachidaKarate]

come watch rizin with us on saturday bro

I did watch one Rizin event and it was a good time. Maybe I'll check this one out. Kind of hard to stay up until like 6 AM though, which was always my issue with JMMA.

 

[jason73]

I did watch one Rizin event and it was a good time. Maybe I'll check this one out. Kind of hard to stay up until like 6 AM though, which was always my issue with JMMA.

if you order it on fite.tv you get free lifetime replays so its possible to tap out and watch the rest the next day or whenever

 

[Dick Niaz]

It is always a great time to see two humans compete to see who can best the other!!!

If you get caught up in belts, matchmaking, names, and promotions you are missing the point and will likely never be fully satisfied with the sport. I love it as much now as a very hardcore fan as I did back when I was 13 and didn’t know a single fighter or name of any move/position.

I love this sport. Always have. Always will.

 

[FrankieNYC]

Lined up, we have-

A bunch of things to look forward to

 

[LawFitz]

Alex Perez, Zabit Magomedsharipov, Aleksander Rakic, Violent Bob, Stylebender, Volkanovski, Suga Sean, Dan the Hangman, Ketlen Vieira, Tatiana Suarez, Anthony Smith, Alexandre Pantoja, James Vick, Shoeface, Borrachinha, Renato Moicano, Eryk Anders, Dom Reyes, Vicente Luque, Mairbeck Taisumov, Juan the Kraken, Cynthia Calvillo, Elizeu Zaleski, Super Sodiq ... I'm sure I missed a bunch of comparable names.

They are not big (yet) but very much worth following. Part of the attraction for me as a fan is identifying them early and watching them rise. I remember watching all of today's big names as undercard fighters. I don't have the luxury of time to watch smaller shows, so I use the UFC undercards as my scouting opportunity. Have a growth mindset. Look at Cejudo, Dillashaw as examples of past risers. Sometimes you end up with Darren Till. Sometimes you end up with Peter Sabotta. In the end you learn a lot more about what makes great MMA fighting by tracking careers of the up and coming IMO. You get to see what actually works and what doesn't as MMA evolves.

 

[TheEmperorRises]

no way do they let horiguchi anywhere near the golden boy tenshin

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm2250VHPUy/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=srza523zkfat

 

[Wild]

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm2250VHPUy/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=srza523zkfat

Sick fight. Sick card.

 

[Ted Williams' head]

People who hate the state of MMA are the same as the dopes who kneel during the anthem and hate on America. They're focusing on the small bad parts and ignoring the great parts.

There's shit about the UFC, Bellator, etc, that annoys the hell out of me but at the end of the day I'm a fight fan and I love watching great fights. Always have, always will.