There have been more downs than ups for the UFC in the past year or so.
Really, back so far as 2012 and a television deal with FOX that has been more damaging to product quality than anyone would have anticipated at the time, things have been tough.
The world’s top MMA promotion has remained so largely by default, content to leave fans wading through a muck of unknowns and irrelevants and acting like such offerings were on par with those that made the sport great.
And there were offerings that made the sport great. Once upon a time a UFC pay-per-view was appointment viewing, a top-to-bottom piece of matchmaking expertise that would invariably have something for everybody.
It was a great time to be a fan. For a long time, it looked like it would be the last great time to be a fan.
However, all of a sudden, that no longer looks to be the case. The UFC has very much been back in 2015, and they’re making MMA fun again.
Look no further than UFC 183 for proof.
In a world where arbitrarily ranked guys simply must be paired off against one another in the absence of hype or naturally built enthusiasm (because if they don’t headline a card at 2 a.m. in Fairfax, Virginia, who will?), the UFC decided to do something fun again.
They took two guys people love, both of whom tend to be exciting in the Octagon, and they made a fight kind of out of nowhere. Sure, at 39, one is as old as our very own Jonathan Snowden and was last seen with one working leg, while the other has been retired since 2013 and can’t catch a flight to save his life, but it’s fun.
Remember fun in MMA? It used to be a far more regular occurrence.
Fun gave the world Randy Couture butchering James Toney.
Fun had Anderson Silva in his prime smashing Forrest Griffin and James Irvin because the middleweights of the world were honestly boring to him.
Fun had Brock Lesnar stroll out of pro wrestling and become a world champion.
And somehow, fun became forgotten. It became, in a way, painfully underrated.
When Silva and Nick Diaz meet up on Saturday night in Las Vegas, it will strike a blow for everyone who likes fun things in MMA. It’s a guarantee from the UFC that, regardless of the outcome and however long it takes to arrive, there will be can’t-miss television.
As legitimacy and respect from the mainstream has become the goal of the promotion, the definition of “can’t-miss television” has been adjusted accordingly. They’ve shied away from the things that catch people’s eye as fun, relying instead on a collection of guys who largely look and fight the same to garner attention.
The success of that strategy has been mixed, at best. It’s probably no coincidence that the unique personality of Conor McGregor and the unique talents of Lyoto Machida are among the top draws of the FOX era. This suggests that people want more than two guys who wrestled in college stuffing one another’s takedowns and exchanging respectable kickboxing combinations.
Going back to the traditional appeal of the sport—that it’s fun—indicates a willingness to adapt to what consumers want.
Diaz and Silva is fun, but so too was McGregor’s rout of Dennis Siver, Anthony Johnson’s rout of Alex Gustafsson, and Jon Jones’ rout of Daniel Cormier. They’re all fun in their own way, be it UFC 183’s bizarre spectacle, the promotional fun of McGregor, or the competitive importance and fun of the other two mentioned, and they provide something for everyone.
Picking from the platter offered up by the UFC in 2015 so far, every type of MMA fan has been served, and they’ve been served with different portions of what has historically made the sport so enjoyable.
So here we are, only hours away from UFC 183. Diaz and Silva will touch gloves and get down to business, and the thrill of knowing that is truly glorious. It’s a throwback to a time not that long ago, when nothing mattered on a Saturday night beyond a cage in the Nevada desert.
It’s good to have that feeling again.
MMA is fun when it’s done right, and no one has more resources to do it right than the UFC. When they’re using them correctly, as they are at UFC 183, there’s nothing better in sports.
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