To anyone who hasn't seen UFC 97 and is planning on watching later...

[Fabien Barthez]

Originally Posted by Loose Cannon Agree with everything Rob is saying here. Hey, I argued the thing about Lesnar getting a shot before, but looking back, what a great move that was to give him the Title shot. I know you guys would like for MMA to be this legite sport and steer away from things that are used in Pro Wrestling. The problem is that MMA is a National company, with TV deals, with advertisers, with sponsors. It's at the level where Business (PPV buys, merchandise, ticket sales) comes first and sometimes it will be at the expense of "deserving" fighters. It's just the nature of the Entertainment Business MMA is not baseball, it's not soccer, it's not football and it never will be. MMA is Sports Entertainment. It's home base is Las Vegas. There's a lot of theatrical elements to it and that's needed for the sport to stay on top on a National Level. It needs it's crop of exciting and charasmatic fighters to pull fans in. There's a reason they came up with the Ultimate Fighter TV show. It wasn't just to try and find great fighters. It was to introduce casual people to the next crop of stars in the UFC. The viewers got to see thier personalities outside of the Octogon and that's a huge part in selling tickets. When people can relate to fighters to where you really care if "fighter A" wins or loses, that's money in the bank all day long.

I disagree with all but the last paragraph, which was only pointing out the obvious reasons for TUF from a promoters POV.

The nature of the game itself provokes more excitement and fast action per minute than most other sports. Its unpredictable nature is another reason for attracting an adrenaline keen audience. But it's based in Vegas because Boxing has had huge drawing success there, regardless of world perception at any time, and the guys who bourght it not only own a casino there, but have lived there forever. And on top of that, they wanted to show the Boxing audience a more exciting product and detract from the boxing fanbase.

Vegas also has some of the best PPV production and distribution facilities in the world.

So I would say locality, support base and distribution are why UFC is based in LV.

MMA IS AN ENTERTAINING SPORT

MMA IS NOT SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT.

That is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. The fact that you must have typed that out, and re-read it and then posted it boggles my mind.

Sports entertainment is a worked athletic contest, giving the perception of reality, with scripted build-up and finishes.

How is that anything like MMA? Because they do little pre-recorded vignettes before the fight? I'm not saying that because MMA is a legitimate sport, that promotion is destitute, but these are just subtle ways to hype the fight.... just like countdown... the guy looks like a beast in the gym, and then says a few sentences about how he is going to fuck up his opponent. That is just promoting your fight and showing yourself in a positive situation. Just because of how they promote the fights, does not make it Sports Entertainment.

It's sport! It's competition. It is a legitimate one on one physical contest. People were pissed off with Silva/Lietes because it wasn't as exciting as these legitimate fights usually are. It was still a legitimate fight though. For Silva, the risks of being over agressive outweighed the reward. He was winning the fight, just because the people watching were booing was no reason to try to push to finish the fight he was going to win even if he didn't up his aggression, and if he did, he would have increased the chances of Lietes finding an oppertunity to win the fight.

And that is the reason why he didn't hear boo's and start swinging for the fences, because he does MMA to prove that he cannot be beat, and he is the best at the sport he makes his profession. Not because he will get paid more to jeprodise his legacy.

Dana;s job is to promote, and he does a great job of it, but the longer this sport is going, the more fighters are going to be able to work out the counter or block or how to neautralise everything. that was a result of 2 guys with fairly neautralising skills. It is why the majority of Boxing is so boring. Every single flinch breath and facet has been concidered in the gym due to how we know fighters come forward and how they throw.

fact is, Dana cannot influence what happens during a fight anymore than he already does. And if he does feel he should say to Anderson 'Next time, could you push the pace a bit more and take more risks' then he is no better than Gary Shaw, and is only effecting the legitimacy of the 'Real as it gets' sport he has been promoting for 10 years.