I think that article I posted did a good job of outlining the problem with all of that. Yes, we wanted it to become more mainstream, but that's because we realize there's tons of nuance and context to everything and acknowledge that it will take a while for people to catch up. And to Joe's point, I do think having a guy on the post-fight show who is solely there to spit out controversial takes doesn't help to further any casual viewer's understanding of the sport. I don't even necessarily disagree with some of Smith's points about Cowboy possibly having trouble performing in high stakes fights (to a certain extent), but he didn't really give any nuanced points on it. It was just a rant on how badly he failed. haha. Yeah I had to quit listening to him haha. He thought it was completely about media attention and number of views. He might have had a lot of eyes on him, but that's not necessarily a good thing if he's going off on a rant disparaging the fighter who just lost....and that was more Joe's point.
This isn’t the first time Stephen A has tried talking about MMA. Like Joe said, ESPN has so many current and former fighters to choose from when it comes to analysis. Felder, DC, Cruz, Bisping, Rashad.. even Anthony Smith and Usman have done desk analysis for ESPN post fight. Having Stephen A talk nonsense at the end of an event isn’t gonna drive up viewership. All it does is make the UFC and ESPN look bad.
Smith's shtick just doesn't work for MMA. Hearing him talk about it at all makes it very clear he's barely scratched the surface of the sport since being picked up by ESPN.
Rogan fuckin nailed it perfectly when he bashed him on the pod. You can tell he meant the fuck out of it he kept repeating himself for like 25 mins lol
Paul a Felder isn’t getting enough shit for how awful he was that night too. That whole night was trash for commentary from nearly everyone except maybe Anik.
What exactly did he do that was so bad? We had people over so we weren't paying attention to the commentary all that much.
He spoke like he was watching fights with his friends; BSing, reacting to the fight, and telling stories rather than providing insight to their actions and calling the fight. He seems like a good dude but it was not what I want to hear on a big fight. It was tough hearing all my friends who never pay attention to mma complain about it.
The Rogan podcast with Lovato Jr is really really good. Talking about his mental and physical battle with his health leading up to his last fight when he won the championship. Dude went through hell during that training camp.
I just finished that. Crazy that this is happening. Glad someone caught his brain condition and hope they can figure something out for him.