Injuries have plagued combat sports for decades and MMA—and especially the roster of the UFC—is no different.
But what if it was?
What if Injuries that stopped fights from happening didn’t occur. That isn’t to say that fighters wouldn’t get medical suspensions after fights, but that there wouldn’t be medical issues that stopped them from competing in the lead-up to already planned matches.
Let’s say we lived in a hypothetical world where this was possible.
The entire look of where the UFC is now would have changed. Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar would probably be in entirely different situations.
Georges St-Pierre has suffered from several injuries lately in his career and though none of them have been serious, they have put him on the shelf a few times. This has actually helped him as there were a few times that no one in the welterweight division had distinguished themselves enough to earn a title shot.
It’s very possible that if GSP had never been injured, he might have moved up in weight to the middleweight division.
It isn’t a move that GSP has wanted to make, but without injuries he would have long ago removed any challenges from the welterweight division and with it all of his big-money fights. No matter how much a fighter may love the sport and enjoy competing on a level, the reason they step in the cage is to get a paycheck.
If fans stopped buying pay-per-views that fighters are in, then the fighter will do what it takes to increase that income. It’s definitely something St-Pierre would have done.
And then there is Lesnar. Without diverticulitis, he easily would have been given either multiple shots at the title or worked his way into a second title reign. Perhaps he would have even kept the title to begin with.
And the UFC certainly would have made more money.
But more important than any individual fighter is the impact that it would have on the UFC marketing department.
A lot of the PPVs this year have underperformed considering the UFC’s numbers in the past. They simply haven’t set the world on fire, even with the FOX debut. That is because marketing had to switch up fights quickly after having made videos and put out different promotional items.
Fans expect certain fights and when they don’t come to fruition, it gives people less time to get excited about a different fight. It also can have the added effect of fans not buying the event solely from disappointment of a fighter dropping out.
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