The UFC is currently taking a breather since the company will not be putting on any PPV or major TV events for quite some time. We just got through a great card of UFC on FX 2, which took place on March 3, but it will be not until April 14 to witness another card. The UFC will return with UFC on Fuel TV 2, where Alexander Gustafsson will face the returning Thiago Silva.
While stacked with well-known fighters, especially Brian Stann, the card is not the strongest. It won’t be until April 21 that fans will have another PPV event to watch. With almost six weeks of layoff, the UFC will focus on its reality show, “The Ultimate Fighter,” which starts on March 9.
Some might argue if this layoff is a welcomed or not, and most of it is probably subjective. Having seven different events, with three of them PPV already this year, the UFC already saturated the first quarter of 2012. From January to present-day March in 2011, the UFC put on five events. Before that it stayed around three, and before 2004, there was essentially only one.
The UFC has already stated this will be the most event-filled year to date, and with their fresh partnership with FOX, it seems they will be delivering in full force. Some might argue this hiatus is a great thing, giving the viewers at home a little time for their wallets to cool off. They wouldn’t argue about too many fights, but too many $45-$55 PPV’s are hard on anyone these days.
The only bad thing about this layoff is the less exposure, of course, combined with a general lull feeling in the MMA world. Media sites will have a lot of filler articles during this time about things like the good and bad of the layoff and analyzing it.
What a silly topic! But still, some will be interested to read about it, since most fans are probably already feeling like they are going through withdrawal.
This feeling has come as a double-edged sword. The UFC and ZUFFA in general have put out a continuously growing number of events, and having seven already by March 3rd, it just feels natural that one would be coming up soon. It has come to a point where people can assume there is a fight each weekend, and be right most of the time. The Ultimate Fighter is like an IV drip for the time, but major events are what we crave.
It doesn’t help the fact that UFC 144, which was at the end of February, had seven fights on the main card, with five prelims prior. A week later was another 11 fights at UFC on FX 2.
To put this into perspective, fans have watched 73 different bouts since the start of this year.
That’s a little more than a fight per day, and eight matches every week. Years ago when the UFC first started, in order to come close to matching that 73 bouts, it would have taken every bout from UFC 1 to UFC 7. That span was from November of 1993, until September of 1995, instead of less than three months.
This is why when there is a six-week layoff, after nine weeks of what was just mentioned so far, the feeling of discontent is inevitable. While the layoff allows everyone to get caught up and have solid debates without rankings changing every weekend, it hinders the publicity. The UFC is strong enough that this doesn’t negatively affect them in a significant way, and if anything, it will help boost the sales of UFC 145. Fans may have felt anxious for the next PPV, and a championship one like Jones vs. Evans is a welcomed way for people to fork out the cost yet again.
The layoff was partially due to UFC 145 being moved from its original date of March 24, but that too would have put a gap from April 14, until May 5. This break is bittersweet for many and has both good and bad implications as a result. While we all await UFC on Fuel 2 and UFC 145, our attention will at least be stimulated by a newly formatted TUF season, which now comes to us live.
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