I am a fight fan. I love combat sports of all kind whether it’s mixed martial arts, boxing, kickboxing, Jiu Jitsu competitions, or Karate point fighting. I love it all.
However, you can have too much of a good thing. There are already 26 UFC fights tentatively scheduled for the UFC this year running through November 17th, and conventional knowledge tells us that we can expect another three to four events to round out the year. Last year there were 27 events total.
It’s no secret that Dana White believes that the UFC is competing with the NFL and other ratings juggernauts. He wants to be mainstream. However, you don’t become mainstream by saturating the market with your product. You become mainstream by making it seem special. The UFC is the most profitable mixed martial arts organization in the world because they have the best fighters and they put on the best product. It should be marketed that way. Yes there are tons of fighters in the UFC and having all of these events is giving everyone ample time to shine, but you wear out your fan base by constantly putting on fight after fight after fight. After a while people are going to cherry pick some events and not even bother watching others.
Take UFC 147 for example. Is anybody truly going to pay to see Wanderlei Silva vs Rich Franklin? I seriously doubt it. Granted this card has been cursed beyond all measure with the Silva-Sonnen rematch being moved back and even the replacement main event of Vitor Belfort vs Wanderlei getting bit by the injury bug, but that’s when you have to know when enough is enough.
UFC 147 is just not meant to be. Call it off. If you don’t call it off, at least don’t ask us fans to pay for it, because it’s simply not worth the money.
With that being said, to solve the problem the UFC must simply scale back the number of events. Put the best on PPV and FOX, and spread the rest amongst the undercards, FX, and FUEL TV. It can be done, and it should be done because overwhelming the fan base will just lead to more harm than good.
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