On Saturday, the UFC returns to London, a city that has long been a hotbed of the sport. That in itself comes as no surprise. British fans flock to fill arenas whenever the UFC comes to town, often buying tickets before the fight card has even been announced. Their appetite for UFC action remains, apparently, insatiable.
What is a surprising, however, is UFC's decision to provide these loyal, rabid fans with an afterthought of a show. Even the main event, a battle between mid-tier light heavyweights Jimi Manuwa (16-2) and Corey Anderson (10-2), is little better than a time filler.
Has it come to this? Has UFC's continued expansion and obligations to both television and the hardcore fans who've purchased their streaming Fight Pass service doomed fans to a succession of lackluster cards from now until eternity?
Veteran MMA scribes Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas tackle the question that will make or break an entire sport.
Jonathan Snowden: London is one of the world's great cities. When I lived in Europe, we would fly there once every couple of months to soak it all in. There were unparalleled cultural opportunities and a diverse, interesting population, with people from all over the world who had come together to make their stand against ignorance and assorted nonsense. And also to drink beer. All the beer.
Suffice to say, I have strong feelings for London. But even if you don't particularly care one way or another, it doesn't really matter. Because, I think we can all agree, London deserves better than this abysmal UFC card.
Any place would.
Whether you live in L.A. (Los Angeles or Lower Alabama) or in the wild mountains of Montana, your town is too good for this dreadful show.
Every time I think the UFC has reached new lows, it manages to surprise me. The sport has been stretched thin, to the point of breaking. Stars are few and far between, and the generation that built the business is fading athletically. Their replacements, it seems, are making a fashionably late entrance.
I understand that intellectually. But my heart cries out all the same.
Jimi Manuwa—main eventer? Really? Arnold Allen vs. Makwan Amirkhani? I defy you to look me in the eye and pretend you know who those gentlemen are without a sneak peak at Tapology.
And they are on the main card!
Right now, the UFC has a market desperate for mixed martial arts. The O2 Arena, which attracts more paying fans than any other indoor stadium in the world, will be packed from floor to ceiling. People are buying this dreck.
But for how long?
Is this sustainable Chad? Can UFC continue to rely on its brand to sell an increasingly dismal product, both to fans overseas and the most hardcore fans in North America via UFC Fight Pass? At some point, the straw will pile up to the point the camel will have no choice but to collapse, right?
Chad Dundas: Even amid the trickle of lackluster fight cards the UFC has rolled out to begin 2017, this one stands out. Someday, people are going to be flipping through a stack (or an internet slideshow) of UFC event posters, will see the one juxtaposing the big glossy photos of Manuwa and Anderson and think, "Wait, there must be some mistake here."
We're still in the backwash of the UFC's lucrative 2016, a year in which it fired a lot of promotional bullets in order to smash its own all-time annual pay-per-view sales record. At this point, though, it's mid-March. The first quarter of the year is almost up, and yet a glance at the upcoming UFC schedule shows TV events headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. Wilson Reis, Cub Swanson vs. Artem Lobov and Alexander Gustafsson vs. Glover Teixeira.
By the time we get through that stretch, it'll be the end of May!
Granted, the mildly interesting UFC 210 (featuring Daniel Cormier's light heavyweight title match against Anthony Johnson) is coming up on April 8, and then the fairly stacked two-title affair of UFC 211 on May 13, but still—this is a bad stretch for UFC.
It makes you feel for fans in London who jumped in early to buy tickets to see Fight Night 107 live, only to get walloped with a card that looks like something from the regional independent circuit that ought to air on AXS TV.
And you're right, if I were a hardcore fan who was either attending this event or continuing to shell out a monthly subscription fee for Fight Pass, I'd be getting a little uneasy right about now.
If I were that fan, I'd love to know the long term strategy here. So far, new UFC owners at WME-IMG appear to be hacking away at the fight company's roster—letting legitimate prospects like Kyoji Horiguchi and Nikita Krylov walk—while serving up a menu of fight cards that will be remembered as one of the worst in the UFC's modern history.
It would be nice at some point for somebody to let us know where all this is headed, lest those hardcore fans do indeed start thinking about voting with their wallets.
What do you think, Jonathan, will the UFC turn it around in the second half of 2017? Or should we all start getting used to Manuwa vs. Anderson as the new normal?
Jonathan: I wish I had comfort to provide, but considering the state of the world these days, I'm fresh out. Perhaps, in some weird way, UFC is mimicking the broader world, replacing former matchmaker Joe Silva's carefully considered order with random corporate chaos.
Of course, UFC already had the loud-mouthed Twitter troll as president—so maybe life is imitating art after all?
Anyway, to actually answer your question, I'm afraid that things may not be getting better, because I've heard this song before. WME-IMG has a corporation's soul. It's dark, shriveled and crying out for cash like a zombie with eyes only for human brains.
WME-IMG, no doubt, sees how big boxing shows operate, with big main events surrounded by dreck and random television cards filled with prospects and the occasional has-been. They know that fight cards don't have to be good to sell in quantity and have likely grasped that UFC could achieve the same financial return with much less effort and expense.
They've perhaps even intuited Silva and former UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta's darkest fiscal secret—they were fight fans who wanted to create the kind of quality top-to-bottom shows fanboys love. WME-IMG doesn't have love in its heart for great fights. Heck, despite what Citizens United told us, corporations don't even have hearts. They are driven by profit, loss and justifying the $4 billion paid for UFC last year. Quality is not job one.
As long as UFC fans in London and elsewhere are willing to pay a premium for the UFC brand no matter how obscure the fighters entering the Octagon are, WME-IMG will be happy to oblige them. If the UFC can garner consistent ratings with relative unknowns, the bean counters will be pleased to water down the shows until they are little more than gruel.
The power here rests with the consumer. After all, if you squint hard enough, you can find reasons to pretend everything is OK. Look, it's Tim Johnson, an enormous man with a mustache. Is that Gunnar Nelson? Yes please.
Are fight fans willing to watch this thing become boxing, aesthetically, if not in the cage? How hard are you willing to squint in order to pretend this is still the sport we fell in love with?
Chad: Honestly, man, I'm not sure I'm willing to squint much more than I already do.
The fabric of this sport is vastly different now than when I found it. Things like the continually ballooning live event schedule, Reebok outfitting deal, Fight Pass and what in retrospect was a network television deal that asked the UFC to churn out an insane amount of content have all changed it—and not much of it for the better, in my opinion.
The vision you provide for the future of the sport is a sobering one, and all I can say is that I hope you're wrong. I was initially bullish about the prospect of the WME-IMG era in the UFC, but the first few months of 2017 have moved me squarely into the undecided column.
I still think our new overlords can make this sport better. I'm just no longer sure they will.
Which brings us back to Manuwa vs. Anderson as an even partially defensible main event inside the Octagon.
To date, I've been astonished at the willingness of the sport's hardcore fanbase to accept the many machinations of the UFC, fork over the consistently rising financial burden of being a fan and follow the twisting threads of an increasingly impenetrable schedule and do nothing but shower praise and line up for more.
How long can people keep up that level of enthusiasm? I'm guessing right up to the point that fights like Manuwa vs. Anderson become the rule instead of the exception.
I think fans are willing to sit through the doldrums of early 2017, but they're damn sure hoping for a rebound.
But if what we're seeing here is regression to a new, disappointing standard instead of a monetary lull in the action, I can't imagine even the UFC's most devout followers staying engaged forever. At least not to the level they currently are. Myself included.
Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.
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