Sometimes you don’t need to be the best to make a career in the UFC.
By having the ability to promote athletes without conforming to a set playing schedule, matchmakers in combat sports like boxing and MMA have a lot of control over who gets promoted and who gets ignored.
Time and time again, the most talented, fan-friendly fighters—the Manny Pacquiaos, Mike Tysons and Chuck Liddells of the world—become the biggest names in their respective sports.
These guys are the perfect blend of athletic dominance and non-stop action, and for fans, it only makes sense. If you’re shelling out big bucks for a pay-per-view event, you want to watch athletes who consistently deliver the goods.
But what happens to a legitimate sport when mediocre fighters are kept around and heavily promoted only because they put on fun, exciting fights?
Nowhere is the conflict between sport and entertainment more evident than in the UFC. And why not?
If you’re looking to fill upwards of 40 events in a calender year (as the UFC has been planning since its partnership with Fox), it only makes sense to keep around fan-friendly scrappers like Dan Hardy and Leonard Garcia—guys who bring it every night, despite prolonged losing streaks.
The UFC will always need these fun fighters to help sell their pay-per-views. And even though I love a good technical matchup, I just go nuts for a brawl.
Really, that’s the type of fight the UFC has prided itself on.
Keep in mind, it was a sloppy slobber-knocker of a brawl between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin on the first season of the The Ultimate Fighter that everyone credits for launching a dying sport into the limelight. Neither fighter has ever been considered particularly talented, but both men made it their bread-and-butter to fight with heart and determination as a way of overcoming their lack of natural skill.
For UFC brass, they know it’s that kind of blood-and-guts war that helped make the UFC what it is today.
And from a business perspective, it makes a lot of sense for the UFC. It pays to keep exciting “stand-and-bang” fighters around, since they help fill up preliminary cards and get fans’ blood pumping with gutsy fistfights.
On the other side of things, fans have steadily turned against world-class champions like GSP, who has been labelled more boring and conservative with each passing title defence.
An upcoming fight between a well-past-his-prime Tito Ortiz and the empty husk of Forrest Griffin is a good example of how the UFC differs from other traditional sports.
Neither man has been world-class for a few years, but they are still stars and will help bring eyeballs to the UFC 148 PPV. These blood-and-guts fighters won’t be title challengers in the near future, and they definitely aren’t the best in the world at what they do, but none of that really matters in the fight business.
Whatever way you cut it, there’s one thing you can’t deny: These “Just Bleed” fighters try to make an exciting fight every time they step into the Octagon.
And in the end, isn’t that all that really matters?
Let me know what you think, fight fans. Does the UFC have an obligation to place rankings above entertainment, or should entertainment value dominate the sport?
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com