Is the UFC failing to promote their young talent?

Something that occurred to me today. More and more fight cards are being filled with fighters that are almost completely unknown to the average fan. What has made UFC PPVs worth their money, since the sports rise in popularity, has been the promise of at least 4 fights with fighters that you know and can root for. There are more PPVs this year with only two good fights than not. That is the natural direction of a sport, but why are these new fighters not being promoted more?

I think the problem is something you touched on regarding the amount of PPVs. There are just so many now that its difficult to load a card with recognizable talent top to bottom. When there were only 10 to 12 events a year, it was easy to fill a card with "name" fighters, but now even though the roster is deeper, the numbers don't add up with there being 2 to 3 events every month.

I personally don't mind it this way; if the fighters keep winning, they'll get on a main card eventually. I've never seen a fighter get cut in the middle of a winning streak.

BTW, good to see you back!

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say something I've been thinking for a while. Quite frankly I don't enjoy watching the UFC anymore. There are FAR too many events, FAR too many fighters I've never heard of and FAR too many boring fights. It's not fun anymore. The only time I watch is if it's free and if I can DVR it so I can fast forward through all the boring bullshit. I for one miss when there were only a handful of events per year. I used to get excited to meet up at a buddy's house or have a get together at my place and watch a night of pretty damn good fights with some top notch guys. Now it feels like every weekend there's a card...if not every other weekend packed full of people I've never heard of that don't want to lose their first UFC shot so it becomes a 3 round stalemate. I find myself looking for the fights online the next week so I don't have to pay for them and I can FF to the exciting parts...if they exist.

I think a prime example of not promoting new young talent would be Weidman. Samger here hardly even knows who the current MW champ is. I blame UFC for that. When Jones was at the similar stage in his career he was being touted as the next big thing... and that was before he even held the title.
They need to do alot more in the fighter promoting... they used to be great at it... but somehow I think the FOX deal has killed it. They seem to be more focused on that rather than building names.

So many fighters in the UFC just aren't exciting anymore either. Maybe it's because the level of talent is so much heavier I dunno...but I jokingly told my buddy last week that I was leaving the UFC for Bellator. The Bellator card last week was explosive, I think every match I watched was a finish, they all looked hungry...I don't see that with the UFC like we used to. So many fighters are just too scared to lose. I couldn't care less if I ever saw GSP or Bendo fight again...unless it's them getting KO'd.

Can this have something to do with the whole 'well rounded' thing?  I mean most new fighters now are this hybrid all around fighter, most with nothing that truly stands out.  You used to know the guys who were dangerous strikers and who could submit you from anywhere at anytime.   You always hear that this is the evolution of the sport and I agree, but does it also cause a lack of interest?

I won't lie my interest in MMA is definately lower than its ever been since I started watching it in the late 90's.  I do not know who the majority of the fighters on the undercards are.  I just cant seem to get fired up about most of the up and comers anymore.

HEY OH!!! Nice to see ya back!

nice to be back

I get closer to Samger every year.
I know many consider it "smart", but the sport was much more entertaining when guys did not give a shit about "points" on a judges scorecard since they never intended the fight to go to a decision. They went out there to submit or knock their opponent out and did not fight scared/cautious.

Plus, the only thing people seem to care about is PEDs, all sports have gotten less interesting to me.
I have not paid for a PPV in years. Just not good fights anymore, and the only entertaining fights seem to be on undercards or free events since you have the hungry fighters looking to be recognized.

Sad but true.

I think thats exactly why the fights in Bellator are more exciting. They aren't worried about getting cut, they're worried about getting signed on to a bigger contract. So, they fight to impress.

That's exactly right Chrom....as much as Bellator wants to pretend it's as big and bad as the UFC the fact of the matter is, it's not...and they're kidding themselves if they think that everyone of their fighters goal isn't to make it to the UFC.

After I just re-read Zacch's post, I realized that we are all misinterpreting his point.

We're all saying "I don't care anymore; there's too many fighters to keep track of", and we're blaming the UFC for having an overstuffed roster with too many events.

But I think his point is that the UFC isn't wrong for having too many fighters/events, they're wrong for not giving us the opportunity to give a crap about these "other" fighters that we currently don't care about. They promote the living shit out of 2-4 fighters per event, but don't make a peep about the other 18 or so fighters at all, so we have no fucking idea who they are, and therefore don't care.
I guess I agree with that. I mean, of course you gotta promote the main and co-main events and don't want to spread it too thin, but I think there's enough time in the promotional period to at least briefly spotlight the undercard fighters and let us know who they are on some level.

But seriously.... you expect people to pay 60 bucks for a PPV and the #3 fight is Ferreira vs Santos? How the hell do you even promote that one?

^^^
That's why I didn't get this PPV.  

This PPV was particluarly light on name recognition, becuase Dana/Joe Silva for some reason choose to load-up on one card while assembling a skeleton crew for the next, but I think a little more PR for the rest of this main card would have at least made it a little easier to stomach to drop 60 on it.

We used to look forward to "that fight". Now "that fight" inevitability ends in a judges decision that leaves too much open to the interpretation of legions of unsatisfied fans.

Kinda tough to promote the fifteen minute "feeling out" fight that seems to becoming too much the norm.

To make matters worse, if the Machida camp/fans keep complaining, a boring rematch is inevitable.

[quote="stock"]To make matters worse, if the Machida camp/fans keep complaining, a boring rematch is inevitable.[/quot

Damn .... what if THIS is what Joe meant by the "Machida era?"

Apparently the little promotional problem that Zacch and I are speaking on isn't going unrecognized:

Quote :

UFC 163: Aldo vs. Korean Zombie failed to drive much interest heading into Saturday’s pay-per-view event, which emanated from Rio de Janeiro, and that was reflected in the TV ratings for the preliminary bout broadcast on FX.

The UFC 163 Prelims on FX attracted an audience of 1,000,000 viewers for the four-bout, two-hour broadcast.

UFC 163 admittedly suffered from a lack of promotional attention overall with the launch of Fox’s new nationwide sports network, Fox Sports 1, and the re-branding of Fuel TV to Fox Sports 2, receiving the lion’s share of the media giant’s focus. That coupled with the general difficulty in drawing a summertime viewing audience left UFC 163 fighting an uphill battle.

The lowest ratings the prelims on FX have ever drawn was 880,000 for its first airing, which was for UFC 142 early last year.

The prelims have dipped below the 1,000,000-viewer mark a few times in the past, but have averaged 1.26 million viewers per event since the initial UFC 142 preliminary bout broadcast on FX.

http://www.mmaweekly.com/ufc-163-prelims-tv-ratings-suffer-from-lack-of-promtion-and-difficult-summer-season

To me there are a few problems:

1.  The fox deal kind of screwed their PPV cards up, they now need one or two somewhat quality headliners for the FX and Fuel shows which takes away from the 3rd, 4th and 5th fights on their PPV.  When they only had to do 3 to 4 Spike cards a year, most of which they could load up with Ultimate Fighter contestants they had a lot more stock for the PPV cards.  I'm not complain about this because we are now getting far more free quality cards but it has come back to bight the UFC on the ass in PPV sales.

2.  Too many weight classes, there are just too many damn fighters for the UFC to effectively promote across the board.  They should have kept the smaller weight classes in the WEC so that the UFC could focus on promoting more fighters per division , much like they use to.  Now that they have added females into the mix it will only dilute the promotion pool even further.

3.  Reduce the number of PPV a year.  This is tricky because I think they figured out that if they increase their PPV fights 50% they will only have a 20% drop in viewership so therefore they will make more money having more events, with lesser paid fighters, with only slightly lower viewership.

4.  Finally, there is just not that much to promote any more, 5 years ago there was a large stock of fighters who were entertaining both inside and outside of the cage.  Now the sport has gone a bit more corporate so fighters are afraid to loose because it will hurt their TV time and they are afraid to have a personality because it will hurt their sponsorship opportunities.

All good points.
I kind of wish they would go to 6 weight classes (Get rid of fly, bantam, and feather. Replace with a 140# weight class).
Then cut the number of events in half. They needed a whole bunch more weight classes since you have an event nearly every weekend.
I really hope they don't decide to add another women's weight class or it's just going to get worse.

And #4 is really a big deal, and will ultimately be the reason I stop watching MMA completely. It's why boxing sucks and the UFC is turning into boxing.

I don't think they need to cut the number of events, just do it they way they use to, use the free cards to promote up and coming fighters (like the old fight nights) and make it an honor to be on the main card of a PPV event. More free MMA is never a problem, its just finding a balance between free and paid MMA.

I also think part of it is that the more promotion they put into a fighter the more they have to pay them regardless of their actual abilities. I think they learned their lessons with guys like Tito, Randy and Hendo when they were ready to jump ship when their contract expired and the UFC had to pay them based on their promotional value (which the UFC helped create) and not their actual fighting ability at the time. The UFC has always suppressed individual fighters so that the brand name is always bigger and can move on without them. They have just gone a bit too far with that philosophy not and struggle to build interest in their product.

Grey Suit wrote:

The UFC has always suppressed individual fighters so that the brand name is always bigger and can move on without them. They have just gone a bit too far with that philosophy not and struggle to build interest in their product.

I think this is one of the most important points.
The question is "Is the UFC failing to promote their young talent?". Well, that depends. is it considered "failing" if they are intentionally choosing not to promote them? They can keep these young guys around and stashed away on the prelims, and then when some of the more established guys start getting too long in the tooth or start simply declining and falling off, the UFC can bring up some of these younger guys and start promoting the hell out them as the next big thing, sort of like the "next man up" mentality in team sports.

We gotta remember; this is the UFC's world, we're just living in it.