The American Chronicle weighs in on this popular debate: The recent meteoric rise of MMA, (mixed martial arts), but more specifically, the UFC the last three years has been dogged by one major question: Is it merely a fad or a bona fide trend? This is a fair question with all things that seemingly come out of nowhere like the UFC has.
Four years ago, nobody outside of the hardcore fans knew who Chuck Liddell, Georges St. Pierre, Rampage Jackson or Tito Ortiz were. Now, it's hard to find an 18-25 yr old male who doesn't know these guys. But in order for the sport to continue its rise or maintain its trajectory, several things must come together.
Recent numbers for their main revenue stream, pay-per-views, have been very strong. UFC 79, 82 and 83 rank in the UFC's top 10 grossing pay-per-views. This, in spite of the UFC recently having raised their pay-per-view prices by five dollars. These numbers can be attributed to their headline fighters. More on these fighters later. UFC 79 had the long-hyped "dream match" of Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva and Matt Hughes vs Georges St. Pierre in a contender elimination match. UFC 82 was built around basically one fighter, Brock Lesnar. Lesnar carried lots of fame/fans from his pro wrestling days with him into the octagon, and it showed. It was a relatively weak card but the promotion was based on his match with Frank Mir. UFC 83 speaks for itself, the very first UFC card in Canada, with Canada's top MMA fighter Georges St. Pierre challenging the wise-talking New Yorker who dethroned him a year ago.
Getting back to the headlining fighters, Chuck Liddell is 38 years old. Matt Hughes is 34 and has "two to three" fights left before he retires. Wanderlei Silva is 32, but has lots of miles on him, and he´s not a very big name in the States. Heavyweight Champ Randy Couture is 44 years old and is entangled in a legal dispute with the company. Brock Lesnar has a pro record of 1-1 even though he is already 31 years old and is untested in MMA. Of these fighters, only Georges St. Pierre is young, at age 26 has a long career ahead of him. The company needs to find ways to build new headliners and it appears it had done a good job so far. Forrest Griffin, Roger Huerta, Anderson Silva, Rampage Jackson and "second tier" fighters Diego Sanchez, Jon Fitch, Kenny Florian are just a few.
To show a similarity, look at pro wrestling. In its heyday of the late 90s, its top stars were the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Now its top star is John Cena. While Cena is a star, he's nowhere near the Rock and Austin's level, and the business has reflected as much.
There's also a concern the UFC may be burning out its home base, Las Vegas. They had to heavily "paper" or give away free tickets to its UFC 81 show to make the live crowd larger even though pay-per-view for this show was strong. Multiple cards may have worn the novelty off, but the UFC is smart enough to expand and take their show on the road.
The last major concern is the lack of a major network television deal. The UFC has been in negotiations with several networks, bu the stumbling block appears to be how the show will be presented. The UFC wants to use its own announcers while the networks want to use their people. The UFC believes their own people got them there, and want their own people announcing their own product and rightfully so. Until this last hurdle is cleared, there's no guarantee of smooth sailing. A niche network like SpikeTV doesn't cut it.
Jesse Motiff of MVN seems to think so, in this, his diatribe on Slice.
Here's an excerpt: "EliteXC will likely continue to feed Kimbo fighters that have no hope of beating him but will lose in spectacular fashion to build his 'reputation'. If you're a fan of train wrecks, then Kimbo Slice is your man. The smart move would be to tune in to check out the freak show and never, EVER watch another one of his fights again. Better yet, just tune into Spike TV that night as they will pay homage to Chuck Liddell, a real mixed martial artist."
Dave Meltzer reports that after Matt Serra's loss to Georges St. Pierre, Serra has kept himself in water cooler chats due to his involvement in the potential legalization of MMA in New York. The whole article can be read here.
Shoji easily got the best of any standup and action but Yamazaki took him down frequently and laid on him while trying half-heartedly for submissions. In the MMA world Yamazaki deserved the win. In a perfect world Shoji deserved the victory.
2. Mayhem Miller > Katsuyori Shibata, strikes, Rd1
Mayhem, wearing Aoki tights, grabbed immediate mount and just unloaded with fists and knees on Shibata’s face making him a mess. He was playing to the crowd and the cameras acting like he does. Just complete domination and fun for Mayhem and the referee kindly stopped the fight.
3. Melvin Manhoef > Kim Dae Won, strikes, Rd1
Seeing this result you might picture it in your head as it was the most obvious of the card but it didn’t go that way. Won won (lulz) some standup early and then he slammed Manhoef down to the ground and was in his half guard. Manhoef was eventually able to get on top and pound him hard until Won quit and the ref mercifully stopped the fight after a hard knee.
4. Daisuke Nakamura > Jung Bu Kyung, strikes, Rd2
Nakamura really controlled the action from the feet and on the ground. Bu Kyung put up a fight but got caught right on the jaw and ref stopped the fight. Nakamura would have won a decision had he not stopped the fight.
5. Nick Diaz > Katsuya Inoue, strikes, Rd1
Diaz won the early standup and messed up Inoue’s nose pretty badly. It got closer but Diaz began just picking Inoue apart punch after punch and you saw the white towel (flag) fly into the ring as Inoue’s corner couldn’t take it any longer. Diaz just picked him apart at the end.
6. Tatsuya Kawajiri > Luis Buscape, decision
Kawajiri dominated the ground game for 14 minutes and Firmino had control for the last minute. No serious damage up and down in an uneventful fight but Kawajiri won a boring decision based on the rules.
7. Eddie Alvarez > Joachim Hansen, decision
Fight of the card so far. Alvarez really controlled the action but Hansen came back with a vengeance in round two. Alvarez won the decision, awesome fight. He won the standup, he won the ground game, just a very good fight though this one was rather close.
8. Caol Uno > Mitsuhiro Ishida, sub, Rd2
Ishida controlled most of the first and used his wrestling when he needed it. Uno put up a solid fight but Ishida controlled the action with his dominance. In the second round, Uno took him down and out of nowhere landed a choke which took everyone by surprise. That was rather shocking and out of nowhere.
