The “oversaturation” of UFC events has been a hot topic over the last 12 months.
That’s valid, of course. Hardcore fan status requires the sacrifice of nearly 40 weekends a year these days. What do you get in return for that? Should-be-regional-level fighters you’ve never heard of wheezing their way to a decision.
UFC Fight Night 60, set to go down Saturday, represents a new low for the fans. While mediocre events have become the UFC’s standard and outright bad cards have become increasingly common, none have been as devoid of intrigue as Fight Night 60.
The main event features a welterweight bout between two-fight UFC veteran Brandon Thatch and former lightweight champion Benson Henderson. Thatch is neither a must-see prospect nor a fighter who enters the UFC as an already-proven contender. Henderson will enter the cage on a two-fight skid for a one-and-done bout outside his preferred weight class.
Outside of the main event, only two fighters of note appear on the main card in 2014 Fighter of the Year candidates Neil Magny and Max Holloway. While the two combined for a 9-0 record last year, neither man can be labeled a star, and neither man can be labeled a contender.
The best pound-for-pound fight on the card? Probably the matchup between fringe top-10 flyweights Zach Makovsky and Tim Elliott.
The most optimistic UFC fan would have trouble getting excited for this card. The casual fans, in all likelihood, won’t think twice before skipping this event.
And you know what? That’s a good thing.
The UFC’s ballooning schedule is an issue, but those growing pains are not as much of a problem as how the UFC has handled them. Don DeLillo, in his criminally overrated novel White Noise, posed the question, “Is it better to commit evil and attempt to balance it with an exalted act than to live a resolutely neutral life?” The UFC has, more or less, opted for the latter.
Pay-per-views barely stand apart from UFC on Fox events, which may or may not be better than any given Fight Night. Few cards, and fewer fighters, demand to be seen in the hectic shuffle that is the UFC today. UFC events are no longer really events. They are, by and large, a simple part of almost any given weekend.
Intrigue has, more or less, been spread evenly across all its cards in a fight business where standing out is critical to success. That is not the case in other sports, mind you. A game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees will always catch the eye of fans loyal to either team. A boxing match with Floyd Mayweather still stands out—even with ESPN, HBO and Showtime combining for a daunting amount of pugilistic content.
The UFC traditionally achieves those high highs with “stacked cards.” A compelling main event. A blue-chip co-main event. Various other bouts with either profound importance to the title picture, an interesting story or good ol’ fashioned bad blood. While those sorts of fights still exist, they rarely find themselves consolidated onto one card and are typically each individually tasked to carry an otherwise unimpressive event.
This approach was directly responsible for the UFC’s atrocious third quarter of 2014, where UFC 176 was cancelled, UFC 177 was infamously awful and UFC 178 seriously underachieved in terms of buyrates, according to numbers from Wrestling Observer Newsletter (via MMAPayout.com). While many interesting fights, like Roy Nelson vs. Mark Hunt, Ronaldo Souza vs. Gegard Mousasi and Jorge Masvidal vs. Daron Cruickshank, occurred during that time, they were scattered across so many cards that the decently high highs did not make up for the chasmy lows.
Heck, imagine if UFC 177 absorbed just one or two fights from the Fight Night cards that popped up immediately after. Putting bouts like Joe Lauzon vs. Michael Chiesa, Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva and Myles Jury vs. Takanori Gomi alongside existing the existing main event of T.J. Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao 2 (which, of course, became Dillashaw vs. Joe Soto) would have actually kept it on par with other pay-per-views.
And that brings us back to Fight Night 60.
Benson Henderson vs. Brandon Thatch was not always the main event for UFC Fight Night 60. Its original headline was a welterweight tilt between fan favorite Matt Brown and former Strikeforce champion Tarec Saffiedine.
When Saffiedine pulled his groin and was forced to withdraw from the fight, Brown was pulled off the card entirely. He was then moved to UFC 185 to face Johny Hendricks, a play by the UFC that pushed the card to near must-see status. Fight Night 60 might be a new low for UFC Fight Nights, but at least this time, its weakness directly translates into a stronger UFC 185.
That is a welcome change. Few people watch every single UFC event anymore if they don’t have to. Frankly, the UFC is doing its fans a solid by making it easier to pick and choose which cards to watch.
That’s a good thing, and it is something that the UFC should continue.
If the UFC wants to bounce back from its awful 2014, and if it expects its American and Canadian fans to continue footing the bills for its international expansion efforts, rewarding fans for their continued interest in the sport with great pay-per-views is an absolute must.
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