Tag: UFC on Facebook

Ten Different Ways to Look at UFC Fight Pass


(Saffiedine! Lim! Eleven fighters we’re so confident you won’t know that we aren’t even going to bother showing you their faces! Props to Michael Sempervive for the image.)

By Seth Falvo

With all of the coverage that UFC Fight Pass has been receiving, it’s hard to believe that it has only been two weeks since the launch of the network. So far, opinions have ranged from “pathetic cash grab” to “everything a fight fan could possibly want.” In an effort to evaluate Fight Pass up to this point, here are ten ways of looking at the network, arranged in no particular order.

1.) Should You Buy Fight Pass? Well, Should You Buy Netflix?

“Netflix for Fight Fans” is how Lorenzo Fertitta summed up the service, and honestly, that sounds about right. Fight Pass offers exclusive content in the form of international events and preliminary fights – just like how Netflix offers Orange is the New Black – but its selling point is its archives. If you already own all of your favorite fight cards on DVD and are only interested in watching the UFC’s pay-per-views, then Fight Pass has nothing to offer you. For the rest of us, it’s a matter of whether archives and international cards are worth $9.99 per month.

2.) It Isn’t Nearly the Bargain that Supporters Claim It Is.

The Netflix analogy doesn’t quite hold up though. I use my Netflix account every day, and regardless of who I’m watching it with, I can find something on there that everyone will enjoy. I’m not about to sit down and watch old fights on a daily basis, and unless the original documentaries that the UFC is promising us are downright spectacular, I doubt that my non-fight fan friends are going to want to watch Fight Pass with me. This doesn’t mean that Fight Pass is a waste of money, but let’s not pretend that paying $119.88 per year to watch old fights and Facebook preliminaries is the best thing to ever happen to MMA fans, either.

3.) It Isn’t Nearly the Insult That Detractors Claim It Is.


(Saffiedine! Lim! Eleven fighters we’re so confident you won’t know that we aren’t even going to bother showing you their faces! Props to Michael Sempervive for the image.)

By Seth Falvo

With all of the coverage that UFC Fight Pass has been receiving, it’s hard to believe that it has only been two weeks since the launch of the network. So far, opinions have ranged from “pathetic cash grab” to “everything a fight fan could possibly want.” In an effort to evaluate Fight Pass up to this point, here are ten ways of looking at the network, arranged in no particular order.

1.) Should You Buy Fight Pass? Well, Should You Buy Netflix?

“Netflix for Fight Fans” is how Lorenzo Fertitta summed up the service, and honestly, that sounds about right. Fight Pass offers exclusive content in the form of international events and preliminary fights – just like how Netflix offers Orange is the New Black – but its selling point is its archives. If you already own all of your favorite fight cards on DVD and are only interested in watching the UFC’s pay-per-views, then Fight Pass has nothing to offer you. For the rest of us, it’s a matter of whether archives and international cards are worth $9.99 per month.

2.) It Isn’t Nearly the Bargain that Supporters Claim It Is.

The Netflix analogy doesn’t quite hold up though. I use my Netflix account every day, and regardless of who I’m watching it with, I can find something on there that everyone will enjoy. I’m not about to sit down and watch old fights on a daily basis, and unless the original documentaries that the UFC is promising us are downright spectacular, I doubt that my non-fight fan friends are going to want to watch Fight Pass with me. This doesn’t mean that Fight Pass is a waste of money, but let’s not pretend that paying $119.88 per year to watch old fights and Facebook preliminaries is the best thing to ever happen to MMA fans, either.

3.) It Isn’t Nearly the Insult That Detractors Claim It Is.

You mean to tell me that the UFC isn’t giving away fights for $9.99 that over 500,000 people are willing to pay $60 for? You mean my credit card information may be stolen over the previously secure and trustworthy Internet? You mean that Fight Pass uses the same binding, horrific terms of use that other streaming services use? We’re really grabbing at straws to put down the UFC this time, aren’t we?

4.) It’s a Work in Progress (That We May Be Paying to Test).

So far, Fight Pass has been pretty rough around the edges; to an extent, that is to be expected from a two week-old network. But will Fight Pass be 100% by the time we’re asked to pay for it? The UFC is optimistic that the entire video library will be available by then, but what about the other issues that fans have been having? Time will tell, but don’t act too surprised if it isn’t 100% by March 1.

5.) The WWE Network is a Much Better Value.

MMA Mania seems to think so. Bloody Elbow seems to think so. MMAFighting.com even wrote a piece that was surprisingly favorable of the WWE Network. So no, it isn’t just pro-wrestling fanboys like me who are saying this (although yeah, I’ve been shouting it from the mountaintops).

6.) UFC Fight Pass and the WWE Network Really Aren’t That Different.

The WWE Network is offering pay-per-view events for the same price that UFC Fight Pass is offering international events with mostly unknown prospects. Believe it or not, from a business standpoint, both products are actually more similar than they appear to be. The WWE business model isn’t build around the success of its pay-per-view events the way that the UFC business model is. Given both the rise of the UFC and the storyline-driven cable product that the WWE produces (this makes it necessary to recap what happened at each PPV on cable so that fans who didn’t buy the card can still follow the story), the WWE’s move away from pay-per-view has been long overdue; most WWE PPVs don’t break 300,000 buys. In that sense, both companies are essentially offering original programming that only their most hardcore fans were previously willing to pay for – as well as their archives – on their digital networks.

7.) Come on, There Isn’t a Fair Way to Compare the UFC Product to the WWE Product.

Did point #6 really just compare the WWE Royal Rumble to a UFC Fight Pass card full of unknown Turkish prospects? Oh man, that’s adorable. In our attempts to determine whether UFC Fight Pass is worth the asking price, we’re pretty much comparing an NBA game to an AND1 mixtape. “The mixtape gave away the coolest stuff they’ve seen this year, while last night’s NBA game was just another regular season contest between two teams I don’t care about. And there was only one 360 windmill dunk! NBA hates its fans! Will boycott until they fix!” Doesn’t that sound stupid? Well, now you know how you sound when you go on your “The WWE books PPV events to be more important to the WWE Universe storylines than minor league sports!” rants.

8.) Is This the Beginning of the End for “Free” Fights?

Cable costs money – that’s why the word “free” is in quotations – but is there a chance that the days of fans not directly paying the UFC to watch fights are numbered? We’ve already lost our one true form of legal free UFC fights – Facebook preliminaries – to Fight Pass. How many times is the UFC going to have its minor league Fox Sports 1 cards be outdrawn by actual minor league MMA organizations before those cards are moved to Fight Pass as well? If that happens, how long before the UFC decides to use the flyweight title fights and the other divisions’ contendership bouts on Fox to beef up their pay-per-views, and move strictly to Fight Pass and PPV? If Fight Pass is successful enough to make cable programming an afterthought, don’t be surprised if the UFC slowly begins to drift away from it, the same way that the WWE has pulled the plug on pay-per-view.

9.) Forget The UFC, Is This the Future of Cable?

How many of you only watch a few TV shows, and couldn’t be bothered keeping up with television unless you’re extremely bored? How many of you only own cable so you can watch sports? For that matter, how many of you only watch MMA? Anyone here only watch the UFC?

Since we’re already thinking about a world where UFC fights only exist on Fight Pass and pay-per-view, why not one where people who only watch a few things on TV cancel their cable packages and purchase their favorite digital networks? For far less money than the premium cable package that I currently pay for, I could own several digital networks that give me access to basically anything I could possibly want to watch regarding my interests. And I could access it all anywhere that I have an Internet connection. If Fight Pass and the WWE Network are both successful enough, don’t be surprised to see other companies follow their footsteps.

10.) The Way That You, The Reader, Look At UFC Fight Pass.

Which is obviously the correct way, and anyone who thinks that numbers one through nine are even remotely relevant is a complete idiot. Of course, the correct way to look at UFC Fight Pass is….

Don’t be shy. Let us know how you view UFC Fight Pass in the comments section.

Previously: Nine Different Ways of Looking at Testosterone Replacement Therapy in MMA

The Champ Speaks: Jon Jones Apologizes for UFC 151 Cancellation, Says Fighting Sonnen Would’ve Been “The Dumbest Idea Ever”


(Who wants to take a wild guess at how Bones vs. Belfort will end? Anyone?)

There may only be a matter of hours separating us from the UFC/Dana White/Jon Jones’ decision to cancel Christmas UFC 151, yet it somehow feels as if every conceivable angle has already been pondered, publicized, and pettifogged to an exhausting extent. Fingers have been pointed in every direction; some say Jon Jones is to blame, some Greg Jackson, while others, like Cory Braiterman of MMAMania, feel that Dana White is more or less scapegoating Bones in an attempt to disguise the fact that UFC 151’s supporting card, and in fact many of the UFC’s recent cards, are kind of garbage ass, as BG put it (by the way, garbage ass is phrase that needs to catch on).

Throw in a clusterfuck of bitchassness in the light heavyweight contender pool, and we’ve been left with a “pound-for-pound great” fighting a middleweight whose chance of victory is apparently worse than the chance that you would be attacked by a circus lion in a convenient store twice. On the same day. In two different convenience stores. Seriously, Jones was only listed at -475 in a rematch with Lyoto Machida, and is now listed as high as -1500 over Belfort.

That is some garbage ass, right there.

But the man who has been caught in the middle of all this hate, champion Jon Jones, had remained silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath, likely until Team Jackson could draft up an apology for him to make (ZING!). However, in an interview with MMAJunkie last night, Jones was both apologetic and steadfast regarding his decision.

His remarks, along with the latest in Chael Sonnen’s epic trolljob, are after the jump. 


(Who wants to take a wild guess at how Bones vs. Belfort will end? Anyone?)

There may only be a matter of hours separating us from the UFC/Dana White/Jon Jones’ decision to cancel Christmas UFC 151, yet it somehow feels as if every conceivable angle has already been pondered, publicized, and pettifogged to an exhausting extent. Fingers have been pointed in every direction; some say Jon Jones is to blame, some Greg Jackson, while others, like Cory Braiterman of MMAMania, feel that Dana White is more or less scapegoating Bones in an attempt to disguise the fact that UFC 151′s supporting card, and in fact many of the UFC’s recent cards, are kind of garbage ass, as BG put it (by the way, garbage ass is phrase that needs to catch on).

Throw in a clusterfuck of bitchassness in the light heavyweight contender pool, and we’ve been left with a “pound-for-pound great” fighting a middleweight whose chance of victory is apparently worse than the chance that you would be attacked by a circus lion in a convenient store twice. On the same day. In two different convenience stores. Seriously, Jones was only listed at -475 in a rematch with Lyoto Machida, and is now listed as high as -1500 over Belfort.

That is some garbage ass, right there.

But the man who has been caught in the middle of all this hate, champion Jon Jones, had remained silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath, likely until Team Jackson could draft up an apology for him to make (ZING!). However, in an interview with MMAJunkie last night, Jones was both apologetic and steadfast regarding his decision.

According to Jones, the matter was as simple as the name that was on his contract when he signed the dotted line. And that name was not Chael Sonnen:

Dan Henderson got hurt, and the fight was canceled. I signed a contract a long time ago to fight Dan Henderson. That’s what I studied for, and that’s what I prepared myself for. To take a fight with a different opponent in which I would basically have three days of training before traveling and then starting to cut weight I just thought would be the dumbest idea ever. I wouldn’t have been properly prepared.

Jones also apologized to the cast of fighters on the garbage ass supporting card who were screwed out of a paycheck, but go figure, managed to come off sounding more than a little pretentious before all was said and done:

I definitely apologize to the other fighters on the card. I feel terrible, but it also wasn’t my decision to cancel the whole card. I don’t make those decisions.

I apologize to the people that lost money on tickets and travel and things like that. I don’t apologize for my decision, but I do apologize for the way it affected people. I hope people can understand I was just trying to do the best thing for my career.

I take a lot of pride in the way I perform, and I want to put on the best performance possible every time I fight. I don’t want to go out there just to win the fight. I want to go out there to dominate. I want to make it look effortless. I want it to be a beautiful thing. 

Jesus Christ, Jon. Just say you’re sorry and end it. And know, I was not referring to you as Jesus Christ. Speaking of massive egos, Jones actually claims that if he were to have stepped into the cage with Sonnen next weekend, that would have been letting his ego get in the way:

If this was my first fight in the UFC and I really didn’t have a choice and they needed somebody to step in last minute, if it was that type of scenario, then I’d probably more open to it. But I’m a UFC champion, and I need to perform that way. If I would have taken this fight, that would have been letting my ego get in the way and not using my intellect. This is war, and you have to go in there prepared.

Chael is completely different fighter. This is war. This is strategy. [Ed note: THIS IS SPARTA!!] You have to go in there prepared and know that you did your homework. I wouldn’t be the same warrior if I just jumped in there blindly and was cutting weight while I was trying to prepare for the fight.

Right, because it’s not like Sonnen would have been in the exact same position or anything. Then again, they say that in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. What that phrase fails to mention is that all of those blind men lost their eyes in actual combat.

Of course, now that Jones has turned down a fight with Sonnen, the Chaelgates hath been opened, and dear God are the character attacks flooding in. In an interview with Bleacher Report, Sonnen referred to Jones as “a delusional brat” and took a shot as his businessman-like persona:

He talks of being a businessman?! What?! What risks did he take? What capital did he raise? Where exactly is his office located? How many people does me employ? Hey JJ, put me on the phone with your secretary… Oh wait, what?

But far and away the best insult Sonnen could muster came in the form of a Facebook message that we’ve placed below.

GAME: TROUSERS. 

–J. Jones

Hump Day Headlines with Stephanie Ann Cook

The UFC 126 Pre-Fight Press Conference took place today. When asked what the greatest fight of the decade would be, Anderson Silva said it would be himself fighting his clone. Guess, that trumps his feelings on the Vitor Belfort bout.
Due to high popularity of the Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto Vs. Demetrious Johnson fight, UFC will […]

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The UFC 126 Pre-Fight Press Conference took place today. When asked what the greatest fight of the decade would be, Anderson Silva said it would be himself fighting his clone. Guess, that trumps his feelings on the Vitor Belfort bout.

Due to high popularity of the Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto Vs. Demetrious Johnson fight, UFC will livestream the fight on Facebook this Saturday night from UFC 126.

Govenor Andrew Cuomo of New York state has not included the legalization of MMA in his 2011-2012 budget proposal.

Looks like Joe “Daddy” Stevenson’s last chance win or go home fight will come in the form of a bout against Danny Castillo at UFC on Versus 3.

Bellator now confirms a Lightweight Tournament Championship in March for its Season 4, in addition to its Welterweight, Featherweight, and Light Heavyweight Tournaments.

Get your best value on a dog like, Forrest Griffin or maybe a sure thing like Anderson Silva by checking out our Odd Side Bar on our Home Page for a breakdown of the MMA lines for UFC 126 from all the major online sportsbooks.