Change is coming to the UFC—big, sweeping change. The signs are everywhere, open your eyes and absorb: This is what selling out looks like.
Look at the accompanying trailer for UFC on FOX 1; see how it’s completely different from all the others throughout the years. What worked in the promos for all those PPVs and Spike TV specials is out, tossed aside like a box of irregular Tapout shirts.
No exaggerated camera-preening. No overly masculine, used-car-salesman-like voice-over. No generic metal music. Instead, it’s the Rolling Stones and rosary beads, mixed with cuts of blue-tinted B-roll.
Look at the carefully calculated PR blitz, one reeling in mainstreamers as the hours become minutes before the beginning of the UFC’s first fight on network television. There’s Dana White kicking it with Cowherd and Beadle on SportsNation. There’s a seven-page article occupying the main real estate on the New York Times‘ website. No coup coverage or Capitol Hill dispatches leading the way for the country’s paper of record—it’s cage fighting’s time.
The bell for Cain vs. Dos Santos Saturday won’t just signal the beginning of the heavyweight title bout; it’s the sound that the promotion’s seismic shift is taking shape.
“Pleased to meet you,” new-look UFC. This is exactly what this sport needs, to start looking more like a sport. And the build-up to this watershed moment shows that all the right moves are being taken.
While there’s so much to love about MMA, there’s so much that’s off-putting, too. Before you start bombarding the comments, please note that none of it has to do with the product the athletes put forth. The fights are invigorating, the fighters themselves marvels of sinew and skill.
No, it’s the surrounding scenes and production that can turn off the casual fan. Casual Fan doesn’t resonate with the rah-rah, monster-truck-rally-type commercials. Casual Fan finds Affliction clothing gross. Casual Fan wants to feel comfortable, and the accompanying UFC sideshow can be a turnoff.
Hence the inevitable changes. Saturday, you won’t have to open your eyes and absorb the changes; they’ll be playing out in 1080p in your living room. They’ll be a more toned-down Joe Rogan, with less emphasis on the ring girls’ assets, too. Bet on it.
FOX will play up the human-interest angles of these fighters, and leave the jargon behind. Casual Fan doesn’t want a 10-minute dissertation comparing the virtues of jiu-jitsu vs. wrestling. They’ll latch onto tales of overcoming hardship and character, all tied together with precise editing and heart-string-pulling music.
Oh, and look for de-emphasis and spin if it becomes a blood-gusher.
If you just skim the surface, these are all tenets of selling out, of ditching what made the UFC what it is today. For years, the haughty members of mainstream media turned up their noses at the UFC. So the UFC circumvented them: They credentialed bloggers when nobody else would. They created a community around a fanbase that wanted something different, and packaged it around their likes.
Now, they’re working for the same people who once wrote them off as a barbaric fringe sport. Selling Out 101. But you can’t hate. Every organization that rises up eventually does this. It’s not a sign of being weak or ditching your ideals; it’s a signifier of wanting continuing success. Every thriving enterprise has to change and adapt as it gets bigger, and this is no exception.
Besides, what won’t change is what makes the UFC great in the first place: the fighting product. Regardless of how it’s assembled and sent out to viewers, Saturday night will still be two of the best heavyweight fighters in the world battling in an eight-sided ring.
No MMA fan can argue with that.
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