From 2005 to 2011, the UFC presented an event series that featured some of their best up-and-comers—an event series known as “Ultimate Fight Night.”
In it, the UFC traveled across the US and showcased the UFC brand of MMA action to live audiences who were able to either buy a ticket for the fights, watch them at home on Spike TV, or watch some of the preliminaries on either Facebook or UFC.com, giving fans some options as to how they wanted to get their UFC fix.
With these Ultimate Fight Nights, the success of a deal with Versus, the occasional card on ION Television, and a still-enjoyable run of seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, fans were getting all the action they wanted, when they wanted.
The UFC’s own growth and brand expansion served as a long-term effect of this as they were going to areas that they’d never been able to break into before this event series.
Fast forward to 2012, and things have changed.
Instead of Spike TV, ION Television, and Versus, the UFC is now in the first of a pretty flexible seven-year relationship with the Fox Broadcasting Company, meaning that FOX, FX, and Fuel TV will broadcast these new “Ultimate Fight Night” cards on all three networks, though they do not go by the “Ultimate Fight Night” name and the cards are referred to by either the card’s main event or by the title of “UFC on Fox/Fuel TV/FX”.
In addition, programs such as UFC Tonight, UFC Ultimate Insider, the Countdown to UFC specials, the UFC Primetime series, and even shows such as UFC Unleashed and The Best of PRIDE Fighting Championships now air on Fox-owned programming including.
This includes Fuel, the Fox Sports networks, and sometimes even SPEED—whereas in the past, there was no UFC Tonight, UFC Ultimate Insider was more or less a UFC.com-only special, and the “countdown shows” shared Spike TV with Primetime and the brief run of The Best of Pride.
Finally, the FX channel airs preliminary fights in the same way that Spike TV used to air preliminary fights for UFC cards prior to the Fox deal.
Most outstanding in recent weeks has been what this has meant for “The Ultimate Fighter,” which has traditionally featured 16 relatively unknown fighters living in a house with the goal of a six-figure contract and a spot on the UFC roster in their division.
UFC president Dana White has consistently mentioned that the coolest thing about the current 15th season of the show is that the fights to move through to the finale are all live when they air every Friday night—with only the in-house and in-training drama being pre-recorded—but the ratings for Episode 5 and Episode 8 tell a different story.
As those two episodes alone have provided the lowest ratings in 15 seasons of the show, that can only mean that either TUF has gotten monotonous in its presentation—even with the “Live” format in place—or that TUF may be better suited for a much more different time slot, right?
If the latter is the case, the old Wednesday time slot comes to mind first, because…well, let’s face it: do you honestly care enough to follow American Idol or NBC’s Wednesday night lineup of sitcoms and other programming before the late-night news?
Neither do I, though their lineups aren’t the worst on network TV, to their credit, but I digress.
In any event, whether it causes you to say “flourish” or “fail” in the long run, TUF: Live has the same intentions that every UFC prelims and past TUF seasons all have or have had in that they are platforms for younger fighters, overlooked up-and-comers, and rising prospects to sell their skills and make their own name in the world’s largest MMA promotion.
However, we must reiterate that those two low-rated episodes—as good as they were for some—do make a person wonder if now is the time for a new platform on which young prospects can make their name.
It makes sense, if you think about it—many fans don’t get Fuel TV for their fix of preliminary bouts for the Fox and FX cards, and most of the young prospects usually have to have something about them in the way of hype before a fan can really care to watch their fight—even if it’s on the main card—which often causes some to watch the main card selectively before co-main event and main event time.
Finally, while many fans do tune in to the Facebook fights, the fact stands that all streams lag from time to time, creating a headache for fans who just want to watch some good fights, and nobody wants to deal with a slow stream when they just want to watch a fight online, right?
So with that being said, we have UFC on Fox, UFC on Fuel TV, and UFC on FX, but with only the lucky ones—in other words, those with Fuel TV or those who have no problem either buying a ticket or watching it through Facebook—getting to see what all the fuss is about with some of these rising upstarts before they ever get to the FX portion of a pay-per-view, what kind of platform can the UFC create so that people will be able to see what these young fighters can do?
Obviously, some people would like to see what all the fuss is about with some of these young fighters, but some of the same people looking to see what’s really good about these young fighters are the same ones that find something stale about the TUF formula. Is there any way to build up these young fighters without just automatically signing them to the UFC or having them go through TUF?
In reality, there is an answer, and it can be summarized in three words: Friday Night Fights.
Now, those of you who can’t squeeze Friday Night Fights into your Friday evenings in between Bellator Fighting Championships and TUF: Live need not worry—if you’re familiar with ShoBox: The Next Generation or HBO’s Boxing after Dark, you already have a sound education on what Friday Night Fights is about.
Those who still don’t know can think of Friday Night Fights as the weekly version of what the UFC Ultimate Fight Night cards were when the UFC used to air cards on Spike.
For boxing fans, Friday Night Fights is one of three programs related to that sport in which fans can get a good glimpse of who truly is coming up and preparing themselves for their spot on a major night of solid boxing action.
Dana White and Co. may have had this idea in mind when they came to an agreement with Fox executives to feature UFC programming on their networks, which is exactly why the talent that some see on the Facebook portion of pay-per-view events may find themselves on the main card of an FX card or a Fuel TV card—after all, we are talking about providing a platform on which these rising fighters can make their names known.
That said, there is a vast array of young talent in the world that is just waiting for the world to take notice of their skills, so why not create a platform for them to shine and show the world that they really do have what it takes to hang on a PPV main card or at least a Fuel TV prelim card?
Why not create a year-round type of program—in addition to TUF, of course—that can show the world why these kids can really evolve to that “best in the world” level associated with the UFC, as opposed to just sticking them on the prelims of some pay-per-view and only hoping that they bring it?
It could work out well to showcase more of the young talent, which is something that the UFC—to their credit—has begun to do.
How so?
Their next Fuel TV card features Dustin Poirier and Chan Sung Jung in the headliner.
Of course, one had to watch Poirier’s fight with Josh Grispi at UFC 125 to know about Poirier, and one had to be a WEC fan from WEC 48 to know about Jung, because no one would otherwise show any familiarity with what these two featherweights can do inside the Octagon, in turn meaning that nobody would care that they’re headlining a fun fight card in Fairfax, Va., simply because they’re “just there.”
Without having seen what these two are capable of inside the Octagon, who cares what they can do?
That’s why the UFC brass needs to make something like this happen with the Fox execs—and they know it needs to happen because as sad as it is, not even Alexander Gustafsson or Dan Henderson or even Jon Jones can be active in this sport forever.
Sooner or later, there will have to be a new face that can do things that we’re not going to see from Jones or Gustafsson in this generation. Sooner or later, a lightweight is going to come along that makes Edson Barboza’s striking seem like amateur-level striking.
Sooner or later, a fighter will come into MMA with a heart makes that of Frankie Edgar look like nothing, or some submission endurance that even Benson Henderson will wish he had.
There are fighters in the next generation that can do things that we may never see out of the current generation, and that next generation will carry the torch for the sport of Mixed Martial Arts in the same way that some of the current generation of boxing carried the torch for some of the greats of yesteryear.
However, there’s only so long we can go on talking about this need is and why we need it sooner than later. If there is a way to put these young prospects on by featuring them somewhat prominently on a year-round program a la Friday Night Fights, then let the UFC and the Fox networks do what they can to make it happen as soon as possible.
If not, then here’s hoping they can work to make it happen much sooner than later so that we as fans are not denied the chance to witness the sport continuing its evolution before our very eyes.
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