MMA/UFC Discussion Thread MMA • Page 685

Nah, it’ll be at the Apex lol

 

‘Don’t be Russell Westbrook’ hahahaha

 

Why do I feel like Belal is going to manage to outwork Gilbert here?

 

Gilbert looks flat as hell

 

Belal ain’t getting the shot over Colby with this.

 

He wasn’t going to get a shot anyways. Now he can probably take 5-6 months off and get a shot vs the winner at the end of the year.

 

Don't think a super short notice fight should've been five rounds but props to them both for taking it.

 

An early finish for either of them could’ve changed the plan. But Dana’s also a stubborn sob haha

 

Bruce with a rare mistake lol

 

Love seeing Aljo do his thing. Too well rounded, and held his own wrestling with Cejudo which is so much more impressive than anyone is gonna give him credit for. Outlanded him in every category. Honestly think it should’ve been unanimous.

 

Reminded me of a worse version of Isalm v Volk. Really good defensive wrestling sequences with range being the difference on the feet.

 

man..

 

I knew Burns had made a quick turnaround after the Masvidal win, but I totally forgot that it was just at the end of January that he beat Magny. So he fought three times in just over three months. No wonder his body was wrecked. Hopefully he's still in title contention, but I'm iffy on that just because they don't seem to fond of Belal so getting stuck behind him isn't good lol.

 

Dern v Hill bumped to main event for the 20 May card.

Hill has no place in a main event. I swear either her, Hermansson or Volkov are on every single card and if I never saw any of them fight again, let alone be in a main event, it would be too soon lol

 

Man these apex cards are getting bleak and they just keep pulling from other cards to scramble for “main events”. They need to cut about 25 percent of these cards and have all these contender series guys fight in mid week or do something like they used to with Friday Night Fights.

 

There's just lots of the main events falling through (for a number of reasons) lately and it's just so clear how little they give a shit by bumping up these 'co-main events' to the main event.

 

their contract with ESPN is like 30 fight nights a year. don’t know who that that was a good idea lol

 

You guys aren't true MMA fans if you aren't staying at home on Saturday nights to watch 20 people you've never heard of fighting inside an empty building.

But really though, I wouldn't mind all of these Apex cards if they were happening on Wednesday nights or something, even without a bigger main event. Then they could save some of these better fights for some of the PPVs or Fight Nights instead of pulling them away to headline these terrible Apex cards. They don't improve the Apex cards by much and pretty much just end up thinning out potentially great cards in the process.

 

What in the mismatch hell?

I feel bad for guys like Arman and Umar who can’t get ranked opponents to fight them

 

Do y’all complain about the games/teams you don’t watch or care for in other sports leagues too? I mean, actually stating that you don’t like to watch fight cards if you don’t know big names on them is kinda admitting you’re a shallow fan of MMA no? These amateurs and young competitors need opportunities and being on ESPN Saturday nights is probably one of the biggest opportunities of a platform for them. I enjoy watching upcoming fighters/unknowns with nothing to lose because it’s always competitive unless it’s a complete mismatch. It does seem like the UFC struggles as of late to keep the best fights together, but complaining that there’s too many cards of the sport you like seems kinda silly to me.

 

I think the issue comes from the lack of stacked fight nights. Fight nights used to have 5-6 fun fights and at least half of them were meaningful in the rankings. The cards are so thin due to the amount of cards they are contracted to put on that they pull fights from cards just to save other cards and put on a lot of short notice fights. Dern/Hill has no place headlining, but was a good mid main card fight. Belal/Burns also had no place fighting on 2-3 weeks notice, but that card was super thin.

For me the apex is the biggest issue though. Those cards just lack the excitement of a decent live crowd. They should put these cards at casinos around Vegas or in small venues around the country. They’d be super fun and it would expand the companies reach.

 

The “shallow fan” thing is so uncharitable that it’s basically a meme at this point. Haha. “If you don’t watch every Bellator/PFL/ONE prelim then you’re a casual” The problem is that they’re rearranging the meaningful fights and diluting the potentially good cards to throw them on the Apex cards.

You can act like it’s fine to have multiple cards made entirely of newcomers, but clearly there’s merit to having name recognition or else they wouldn’t even bother having a meaningful fight headlining each time at all. People like to be invested. That doesn’t make anyone “shallow”.

I want to watch Dern vs. Hill, but I’m not going to stay at home on a Saturday night to watch it when it’s the only fight that I’m invested in. Sure, the card could end up being entertaining, but I’d rather see that fight on a more stacked card with people I care about. Or at the very least, put these newcomers in front of crowds so they can make some fans instead of having them fight in an empty building.

 

I think a big thing for me is a lot of these guys on the early prelims are sometimes Contender Series dudes that lost that are being brought in to just fill a spot.

I’m all for everyone getting paid what they can and stepping up but that alone just defeats the purpose of the show.

I’m not blaming any fighters at all. But there’s dudes constantly begging for fights that are ranked and can only seem to get booked once or twice a year.

 

Right. That last part is also an issue of mine. There’s a million cards but it doesn’t seem like they think a lot of the cards are worth putting these guys on them?

And to clarify, I’m totally down watching the guys I’ve never heard of, but there has to be more than one meaningful fight tied to the card for me to even want to sit down and watch the whole thing on a Saturday. When the card is stacked with ranked fighters, I’ll sit and watch 8 newbies fight beforehand. When every other weekend it’s cards with 10 newbies and one decent fight at the top, I’ll pass.

 

Short term I dont watch apex cards live. Long term I think they benifit the sport tremendously, the lower ranked unknowns and upcoming fighters fighting the next guy on the ladder! I love that the ufc doesnt care how entertaining they are. When its all about entertainment we get boxing cards, prospects never fight each other they just knock out bums for highlights.

move them to a week day fine, I dont care but keep them going. Dont have to watch college ball to recognise how important it is to the NBA