‘APEX needs to die’: Fans react to dire state of current UFC product

There has been a serious decline in quality over the last decade or so. It certainly isn’t worth tuning in to watch every card anymore. Tons of horrible filler fights. Garbage WMMA fights which shouldn’t even be in the UFC but that’s another topic. The name value has depleted. There hasn’t been a giant star since Conor. The brand just isn’t what it used to be. It really should go back to one card a month most with better quality.

Probably a negative indicator when there’s a card per month that fans debate if it’s the worst ever

Besides the PPVs, the weekly product is sht. It’s the worst it’s ever been. I actually watch ONE FC Friday Fights and find they are more exciting than the Apex trash they’re putting out.

They packaged it, sold it, and watered it down for billions. This is the end product. Mostly foreign champions, and many champions/contenders from Muslim countries that no one recognizes. Love Ilia and Islam and Magomedov, but do the casuals?

Is the UFC bad now? Is the pope Catholic? Is water wet? Fact: contender series has done zero to create stars. Roster filler, yes. 1 or 2 guys out of how many shows? It’s an incredible failure despit how great Dana says it is. It is a cast of thousands. If they mention on the walkout? I bet to 99% of the audience it means nothing. They don’t know the person in the least. They won’t remember them from the show. Also note, Dana has been MIA. That’s another reason why the UFC is dead right now. They have not replaced the stars. They don’t pay enough to draw them in. The greater boxing becomes? The worse MMA will become. Those MMA fighters will opt for boxing. Look at the ex fighters lining up to box. How bad is the UFC right now? Fast forward is about the only way I get through the cards now. If I know the fighters, sure, I will be more prone to watching. I can tell if the fight is going to suck early enough, then it’s easy to fast forward through. I need to know the names and or faces. It’s never been worse in this regard.

I noticed that too – they go out of their way to mention a fighter was from DWCS. I think Dana gets off on people thinking he has this “great eye for talent” or some $#*t.

Conversely, when a fighter comes over from another org – he tries to throw them to the wolves immediately.

He such a POS.

How do we fix the UFC? I’ve got a simple four step plan:

1. Strip Jon Jones

2. Promote Tom to undisputed champ and schedule a fight for him

3. Close down the Apex

4. Replace Dana with somebody who actually gives a shit.

It’s tough to say what’s currently wrong with the UFC. For one, they should strip Jones for stalling an entire division. They should’ve done the same with Conor. The UFC definitely has a diva problem. But there was also a weird transition phase where the old stars were all retiring and new fighters were still developing a following. We’re seeing some cool characters emerge though: Khamzat, DDP, Pereira, Topuria, O’Malley, Jiri, and so on. It seems like a transition phase that’s still gaining traction and takes time. There’s always been dud eras since Tank Abbott was champ. But it would be better if the organization wasn’t so over-saturated, maybe lose the women’s divisions on main cards, and please make fighters fight.

Apex needs to die, and stadiums full of fans needs to return.

The ufc has turned to sh*t because it stopped being what it was supposed to be in a desperate chase for cashcows champions. They kept giving underserved titleshots to anyone Dana believed had star power and let their most marketable champs cherry pick whoever they wanted to fight to the point where they can no longer claim that ufc champions are the best fighters in the world because so many of them were simply Dana good little boys getting preferential treatments.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become so disengaged with MMA in general over the past 10 years or so, but I feel like the sport itself has lost most of its cultural relevance.

MMA was all about the combination of skill and character value (e.g., “Rampage” Jackson, “The Axe Murderer” Silva, “The Ice Man” Liddell, etc.), and although skill has certainly progresses, there simply isn’t any character value left; so fewer and fewer people are paying attention.

UFC has remained profitable largely because the current sports entertainment environment places monetary value on absolute volume of content creation. But, I can’t see that lasting much longer without some big changes.

UFC is doing great at the moment coasting on inertia/brand recognition/monopoly power. But if they don’t make some changes at some point, the inertia is inevitably going to run out. I don’t know when. It might be too late to matter to any of us current fans, or to the fighters in their prime right now, or to the would-be rival companies that currently aren’t bankrupt yet.

But when 80% of your content is regional tier fights (with admittedly high production value), the clock is ticking on how long you can refer to yourself as “where the best fight the best.” You can pass on some world class talent and not sweat it much, but if it becomes a habit to pass on world class talent in favor of 11-4 “the second best LHW in the greater Kansas City metro” because the latter will endure your humiliation fetish tryout show…there’s a critical mass somewhere. UFC owns the perception of legitimacy in MMA right now, but that is contingent on them doing at least some work to maintain it.

Which is to say, it gets better at some point. Or else MMA fades and becomes kickboxing (regionally popular, very little money involved). But I don’t think the latter will happen, because there ARE plenty of MMA orgs, and there’s an infrastructure within the fandom that never existed in kickboxing (look at the autists in places like Tapology who furiously record the most regional of regional results and who send detectives to go figure out if Western North Ossetia–Alania Fight Federation is a real org, and if its fights are legit). So it’s just a matter of time.

Also #StripJonJones

I’m consistently amazed that a bunch of people who claim to hate the UFC product and everything about it continue to come to an MMA website.

Spoiler Alert: You won’t see Jon Jones stripped – you guys look foolish calling for something that won’t ever happen.

The UFC Product: This shouldn’t have to be broken down for folks who claim to be fans, but apparently it does. Apex Shows are solely for building up fighters/creating stars. DWCS finds new fighters and the stage they begin on are at the Apex. The folks who don’t just win, but also perform, work their way up the card until the have a chance to get on a PPV card. And because Apex cards don’t cost much to put on, the UFC can give fighters chances they might not have even gotten if the only platform were PPV cards. And that’s it – that’s the model. Some fighters will work their way onto a PPV card and some fighters will remain relegated to Apex events. Building stars is the least predictable endeavor the UFC could attempt, so they’re choosing to do it the simplest and cheapest way possible – giving unknown fighters a chance to wow the fans.