Post by donniehoward on Nov 18, 2010 2:12:19 GMT -5
Been thinking about this alot, decided to write about it tonight. Is there anything that could happen, that could stop the meteoric rise of MMA?
Will the UFC continue to grow and become larger and larger? Or hypothetically, could anything knock the UFC off its course and stunt its growth/popularity.
Remember, there was a time, when boxing and horse racing were bigger than Football/basketball.
I have thought of some possibilities, you rate how probable the impact could be:
My top possibilities:
1. Big PPV draws/stars get old, no new PPV draws/stars emerge: this is the biggest possibility in my opinion. I wrote a blog a while back wondering if the UFC could possibly run out of big fights in the future? If Anderson beats Vitor and then Chael, who is left? If GSP beats Koscheck and then Shields, who is left? The biggest PPV stars of yesteryear are growing older and on their way out: Couture,Liddell,Ortiz. Stars like BJ Penn,Rampage,Matt Hughes,Rich Franklin may not be that far behind.
so will enough stars get created to keep up the interest? No offense to these guys but I can't see Frankie Edgar,Gray Maynard,Ryan Bader, drawing anywhere near, BJ Penn, Chuck Liddell,Randy,Tito etc. So the UFC will have their work cut out. Jon Jones certainly looks like a guy who could draw giant numbers though, but the Lightweight,Welterweight and Middleweight classes makes me wonder.
2. Ultimate Wrestling Championships: One of the biggest things,in my opinion, that killed boxing, was simply guys stopped fighting. Fights became snoozefests where guys got on their bikes and avoided fighting for 12 rounds in hopes of winning a decision. Lay N Pray has been around a long time, and not every wrestler does it, but there is always that possibility of a very boring fight when you have a world class wrestler doing nothing but taking a guy down and doing minimal damage in the guard.
If you look at the UFC title picture,Wrestlers have 3 of the 5 belts with only Anderson and Shogun holding titles who are not wrestlers. Of course look how terribly Anderson was outclassed by a wrestler. Guys who wrestle in college traditionally had nowhere to go after college. Now we are going to get a GIANT influx of wrestlers into MMA. I honestly believe Jiu Jitsu will become almost obsolete in MMA in 5-10 years. Wrestlers are natural grapplers and can learn JJ Defense very quickly. so once a wrestler can take down a JJ fighter, JJ becomes outdated like the VCR which is kind of ironic considering Jiu Jitsu use to be the be all end all discipline in MMA. Not anymore, wrestling has taking over.
So if UFC PPV"s turn into wrestling snooze fests, i can definitely see the popularity fade.
other quick hitting possibilities i won't spend much time on:
3. death in the octagon on a live PPV
4. Oversaturation: cards become so watered down that people get tired of paying 54.95 for them.
5. something "NEW" comes out. MMA isn't a fad, but I remember when Pro Wrestling back in the mid to late 90's was the greatest thing of all time.
6. Internet piracy: Free streams are becoming better quality and more prevalent. Just like the music industry, if people become more skilled with their computers, numbers could drop significantly.
and of course, MMA/UFC could grow into the biggest sport in the world. So it will be interesting to see. I think more athletes will enter into MMA and it will become even more fantastic. In its infancy stages, the UFC was sort of the anti athlete's sport. It was a sport where an AVG Joe who could fight Cough Tank Abbott Cough could come in and be a star. As more athletes get involved, and people start training MMA from an earlier age, i think that could offset the "Wrestler" as people will be well versed in every aspect.
we can only hope.
Thanks for reading as always!
Will the UFC continue to grow and become larger and larger? Or hypothetically, could anything knock the UFC off its course and stunt its growth/popularity.
Remember, there was a time, when boxing and horse racing were bigger than Football/basketball.
I have thought of some possibilities, you rate how probable the impact could be:
My top possibilities:
1. Big PPV draws/stars get old, no new PPV draws/stars emerge: this is the biggest possibility in my opinion. I wrote a blog a while back wondering if the UFC could possibly run out of big fights in the future? If Anderson beats Vitor and then Chael, who is left? If GSP beats Koscheck and then Shields, who is left? The biggest PPV stars of yesteryear are growing older and on their way out: Couture,Liddell,Ortiz. Stars like BJ Penn,Rampage,Matt Hughes,Rich Franklin may not be that far behind.
so will enough stars get created to keep up the interest? No offense to these guys but I can't see Frankie Edgar,Gray Maynard,Ryan Bader, drawing anywhere near, BJ Penn, Chuck Liddell,Randy,Tito etc. So the UFC will have their work cut out. Jon Jones certainly looks like a guy who could draw giant numbers though, but the Lightweight,Welterweight and Middleweight classes makes me wonder.
2. Ultimate Wrestling Championships: One of the biggest things,in my opinion, that killed boxing, was simply guys stopped fighting. Fights became snoozefests where guys got on their bikes and avoided fighting for 12 rounds in hopes of winning a decision. Lay N Pray has been around a long time, and not every wrestler does it, but there is always that possibility of a very boring fight when you have a world class wrestler doing nothing but taking a guy down and doing minimal damage in the guard.
If you look at the UFC title picture,Wrestlers have 3 of the 5 belts with only Anderson and Shogun holding titles who are not wrestlers. Of course look how terribly Anderson was outclassed by a wrestler. Guys who wrestle in college traditionally had nowhere to go after college. Now we are going to get a GIANT influx of wrestlers into MMA. I honestly believe Jiu Jitsu will become almost obsolete in MMA in 5-10 years. Wrestlers are natural grapplers and can learn JJ Defense very quickly. so once a wrestler can take down a JJ fighter, JJ becomes outdated like the VCR which is kind of ironic considering Jiu Jitsu use to be the be all end all discipline in MMA. Not anymore, wrestling has taking over.
So if UFC PPV"s turn into wrestling snooze fests, i can definitely see the popularity fade.
other quick hitting possibilities i won't spend much time on:
3. death in the octagon on a live PPV
4. Oversaturation: cards become so watered down that people get tired of paying 54.95 for them.
5. something "NEW" comes out. MMA isn't a fad, but I remember when Pro Wrestling back in the mid to late 90's was the greatest thing of all time.
6. Internet piracy: Free streams are becoming better quality and more prevalent. Just like the music industry, if people become more skilled with their computers, numbers could drop significantly.
and of course, MMA/UFC could grow into the biggest sport in the world. So it will be interesting to see. I think more athletes will enter into MMA and it will become even more fantastic. In its infancy stages, the UFC was sort of the anti athlete's sport. It was a sport where an AVG Joe who could fight Cough Tank Abbott Cough could come in and be a star. As more athletes get involved, and people start training MMA from an earlier age, i think that could offset the "Wrestler" as people will be well versed in every aspect.
we can only hope.
Thanks for reading as always!
