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On the other hand, thanks to Dana and Fertittas love for the actual sport they are really trying to make an organisation that is to a large part about what the fans want and what MMA is about, and that I think is the key to their success. It creates the credebility and love from the fans they need and doesnt just make it some "human cockfighting competition" but a community thing.
wait, thanks to dana/fertitas? i think they get farrrrrrr more credit than they deserve. they care about $. first and foremost... $. not mma. the previous owner got the ufc sanctioned in jersey... and it was the fertitas who blocked them from being sanctioned in nevada. the fertitas were working to kill the ufc... so they could buy it cheaply.
since they've owned the ufc, they've promoted hype and bullshit above mma. hell, honestly, i can't even call it mma. it's more like mixed martial wrestling. the rules are stupid and stifle mma - removing the 4 point attack changes the game dramatically, and gives an inherent advantage to wrestlers. as does the venue (cage). as does the idiotic (boxing!) scoring system - which was designed for 15 round fights... and criteria which rewards takedowns and control (instead of finishes/effort to finish), giving wrestlers even MORE of an advantage AND rewarding leaning/laying, as if it's damaging. on top of all that, they use clueless (boxing) judges. it's a mess. but people are stupid, so they eat it up and think it's awesome. because that's what marketing tells them.
in terms of being about what the fans want and etc - hahaha. please. i almost can't believe people are still dumb enough to buy into that crap. the fans wanted randy-fedor. oops. the fans wanted a ton of cross-promotional fights with ufc and pride. oops. what did they get? nothing. and chuck-wand, 3-5 years after relevance. PPVs which seem to have one or two appealing fights per card... and worse, 3 hour PPVs that show only about 5-6 fights... about 40-60 minutes of fighting. and about 2 hours of commercials and promo bullshit. then again - people, in general, are dumb as shit. so maybe that really is what the fans wanted.
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Im not sure what I think about Zuffa buying Strikeforce, but to be honest, wasnt this exactly what everybody wanted?
hellllll, no. first of all, i didn't like strikeforce. they pissed me off. they had ample opportunity to use real rules and make great events... and never did a damn thing for that. they had the hw division by the balls... and basically shelved them. and when they finally got off their ass and tried to do something (tourney), they made it moronic and stretched the timeline by a just plain stupid margin (MONTHS between the first round fights? what sense does that make?!). instead of trying to better mma, they just... well, i don't even know what they were attempting, because it just seemed outrageously stupid, inefficient, and ineffective.
that said, they were at least some sort of competition. which helps the fighters, the fans, and etc. the fighters had more options, and therefore... more money. the fans had more to watch, and more variety (ie: now strikeforce is the ufc, so it's the same rules and bullshit, instead of a differentiated product).
now zuffa controls it all*. yay. mma is about one coffin nail away from being deceased. long live mmw! leaning and blanketing for the win!
*sengoku dying, feg hurting... and then the earthquake/tsunami/radiation crisis in japan that's about killed them...
zuffa isn't a league. it's just a monopoly. and one with a shitty track record, at that (pride, wec, etc).
this is all great news for zuffa, but it's terrible for mma.
I respect your opinion and agree on some of the things you say.
Time will tell.
