Enough Talk, Let's Fight

The sport of MMA is an ever growing business that has no plateau in sight. The main increase in popularity of the sport came when television started to air fights to the general public. No longer did you have to drive 4 hours out of your way to go to some back room casino brawl for they have brought it to our homes through our TV’s. Just airing fights on TV wasn’t enough to gain such a strong fan base. Promoters and fighting organizations realized they needed to start marketing their product. Currently the UFC has become the power horse in not only advertising but also in pure raw talent. The UFC organization realized in order to grab an even bigger fan base; they would need to bring some good old “drama” into the picture. I’m sure we have all seen the pre fight videos before a lingering bout in the UFC. Whether it’s a couple days before or the night of, if you’re watching Spike TV you will see the pre fight segments. In these interviews you will notice that the main chunk of the video will be about how one guy is going to knock the other guy out. I don’t know if it’s editing on the part of the UFC or if it’s just the fighter’s demeanor these days but you don’t hear them talking about how they are going to focus on their game. During the months and days leading up to a big fight, you will hear nothing but how this guy is the greatest or this guy is way in over his head. Marketing at the UFC is at its highest point it’s ever been at. The heads at the UFC understand that 2 things sell great, heavy combat sports and hype. The beauty about hype is that you can turn it into whatever you like. The UFC PR has done a perfect job of that.

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Saturday, July 3rd , Lesnar vs. Carwin. The hype around this fight was almost a big as the fighters themselves, and that;s saying something when you have the bodies of Lesnar and Carwin in the cage. If you followed this fight closely and watched the pre fight breakdowns you would know that all the talk was around Shane Carwin and his can hands. Carwin had never had a match go outside of the first round and all the journalists thought it was going to be a shoot out with the match being stopped before the ending bell of the first round. Well we all know how that fight went, Lesnar via arm triangle early into the second round. This submission had surprised the whole world and most were still shell shocked a few days after. With the sudden improvement in Lesnar’s game, critics started to say how Lesnar is the best heavyweight in the world without a doubt. I mean after all we knew he could take anyone down, we knew he threw heavy hands although his boxing wasn’t A class and we all knew that if Lesnar is on top of you, well your just in flat out trouble. What everyone wasn’t expecting was the submission. We had never seen Lesnar try and submit an opponent and we knew his defense wasn’t too great which was show cased in the Lesnar Mir fight. With this skill set that was shown, everyone dubbed Lesnar untouchable. This fight was huge for the UFC organization. The unexpected happened that night but what worked so well for the UFC was that they had a new golden fighter to rant and rave about. 

After shocking the world with an arm triangle submission, Lesnar was set to take on the ever up and coming Cain Velasquez. There was talk that Velasquez would give Lesnar difficulties due to his technique but no one really thought that Velasquez was going to take down the giant. After all, Spike TV named the month of October to be dedicated to Brock and be called Brocktober. Once the fight started and the first strike was landed on Velasquez’ part, everyone knew how it would end. Eventually after a knock down, Velasquez finished off Lesnar via ref stoppage due to strikes. Cain’s superior boxing skill set took over in this fight and showed the world that Lesnar does have holes in his game. Since the loss to Velasquez, Lesnar has been out of the media and back to his training. Once that loss came to Lesnar, all the positive comments towards him was dropped like a bad habit. The UFC decided to take their “most dominant fighter” chip and place it in between the middle weight and the welter weight division. 

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GSP or Anderson Silva- that is a fight everyone and their mother would like to watch. The UFC goes back and forth dubbing each one of them the “best pound for pound fighter in the world” but how can you have two best? Undoubtedly these are two of the best fighters in the world. The UFC has a very smart marketing team that they work with. If there is an Anderson Silva bout coming up, all you will hear is that how is his challenger going to take on the best fighter in today’s world. Yet a GSP fight comes up and you hear the same exact thing. The UFC has found a way to attract the main stream audience by telling them they are going to be witnessing the best fighter in the world defend his title. People don’t realize that they say this about the two men because of marketing purposes. Now don’t get me wrong, i wouldn’t want to be in the octagon looking across the canvas to see GSP or the spider looking right back at me. I think that’s enough to humble any man right there. My problem lies within the marketing scheme that takes place. If we want to name someone the best pound for pound fighter in the world, we better make sure we don’t contradict ourselves by then calling someone else the best fighter. The only way to solve this would be to have a catch weight fight between the two men. I think a fair weight of 175-180lbs would serve equal to both men, but that’s beside the point at hand. True fight fans know who is good and where the talent lies. These fans don’t like to be ran around and taken for, like the UFC is doing. Marketing is something every business should take part in but when you over market to the point of contradiction that’s where the issue sticks out. GSP and Anderson Silva are without question soon to be considered Hall of Fame worthy, but that doesn’t mean we need it to be beaten into our heads that both are the P4P best fighter. True fight fans are going to start and see the contradiction at hand, like myself, and they will come with complaints. One thing everyone likes is stability, no matter what it is. One week GSP is the best in the world, the next Anderson Silva is P4P the best. Please UFC, figure out who the best fighter is and stick with that decision, no more riding the fence on these issues. Your loyal fan base is what you should be targeting in your marketing programs, not the coming and going fan that is there one week and gone the next. True fight fans want to see fights, not the hearsay between the 2 fighters before the fight. All in all the UFC has done a wonderful job at establishing itself as a heavyweight in the field of MMA. If they could just tie up some of their loose ends, they would be an untouchable organization. 

By Jeffrey Meinecke
ProFighting-fans.com MMA Staff Writer