So, MMA/UFC wasn't a fad

And some people said 25 years ago that NASCAR would never be anything outside of the moonshine belt and that it was just crash porn.

People are wrong every day, for many reasons. It happens.

 

I would suggest that the argument against NASCAR used the same kind of logic that the argument against MMA did.

 

No, NASCAR isn't predicated upon beating the everloving shit out of another human being.

 

Still feels like the whole point of this was "I was right."

And not in a quirky Dick Whitman way, but in a "someone acknowledge me" kind of way.

 

It could still be a fad.

 

I was actually thinking the same thing. It reminds me of the poker "fad" of the early 2000s. There are certainly still poker tournaments on TV, but the popularity of it all is definitely past.

I've been an MMA fan for years, but I've always felt like its grasp on the attention of casual sports fans is tenuous at best. The UFC found and promoted stars like Rousey and McGregor that pulled in numbers, but that can only last so long. Casual fans didn't tune into their fights because they like the sport itself, just the stars of it. I bet a lot of fans Saturday night didn't know what a rear-naked choke was until Diaz slapped one on McGregor (or they saw Tate do it to Holm minutes earlier).

MMA is a sport driven by its stars, and sometimes stars dry up. There will be people like me who like the sport regardless of how much shit one of the contestants is talking, but I'm definitely in a minority.

 

I should mention, I have no issue with people who hold the view point that combat sports have no place in a civilised society. I don't agree with it, but it's a perfectly coherent argument. I respect the people who make it. The debate that was playing out ten or eleven years ago in the media wasn't about combat sports in general though. It was an argument about MMA in particular, and it often suggested that MMA somehow went beyond boxing (which was a legitimate sporting contest) and should therefore be dismissed out of hand, and perhaps even be prohibited by law.

 

Yeah, we were just laughing at silly fads down at the cigar bar.

 

MMA will have peaks and valleys as stars come and go, and it has had peaks and valleys. Like boxing some fights will touch the mainstream. Most fights won't. I'm not even arguing that MMA is a truly mainstream sport. What I don't think it will do, and this was the suggestion back in 2006, is go the way of Rollerderby. I think we can say that for certain. Given the number of small shows that take place all over the world and the amount of MMA gyms etc that exist.

I think the real test of whether the UFC was going to be a fad or not was when they lost the first generation of stars. I mean, the first generation from the resurrected UFC. They passed that test. I think you can argue that McGregor and Rousey are a part of the third generation of modern UFC drawing cards. Couture, Hughes, Liddell and Ortiz being the first. Anderson Silva, Brock Lesnar and GSP rising to prominence after them. Then McGreor and Rousey following after them.

 

Maybe slightly.

We are all victims of our egos after all. Plus, it's not often that I'm right.

 

71,

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