I just don’t get it.
In his UFC 153 preview column, Sports Illustrated’s Jeff Wagenheim offered the following:
Why we should care: There’s no good reason to care, to be honest. The fight is not for Silva’s championship belt. He’s not taking on a guy who’s anywhere near the Top 10 in any weight class. There’s no big picture here. But if you’re a Silva fan who simply wants to watch the 37-year-old perform, enjoy yourself. To me, though, that’s like being such a Marlon Brando fan that you’re not satisfied to own just DVDs of On the Waterfront and The Godfather but also feel compelled to pick up a copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
First and foremost, I think the analogy is flawed. There is a huge difference between buying one of the worst movies of the last 25 years just because you like Marlon Brando and being excited to see what the greatest fighter in the history of a sport does in his next performance. At this point, you know The Island of Dr. Moreau is awful up-front, but you can’t say with absolute certainty what is going to happen when Anderson Silva and Stephan Bonnar step into the cage on Saturday night.
Additionally, buying the UFC 153 pay-per-view comes complete with five more fights, so it’s not like you’re just being treated to what will most likely be a one-sided Silva victory; you get ten more athletes putting it on the line in the cage.
Six fights that could yield exciting returns is very different than 96 minutes of Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, and a bunch of human-animal hybrids running amok on an island with a bloated and unengaged formerly great actor. It’s not like Silva has lost what makes him magical to watch inside the cage either. While Moreau is hard to watch in part because you know how great Brando used to be, Silva remains one of the most electrifying athletes in MMA today, and continues to deliver impressive performances. You can’t sleepwalk through a fight in order to collect a paycheck the way you can a movie; if that were to happen, we’d likely get the biggest upset in MMA history, which in turn would make this a massive story and an historic fight.
Wagenheim gives the remaining match-ups on the card a one-sentence summation, omitting the heavyweight co-main event between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Dave Herman entirely. As far as he’s concerned, there is only one fight on this card worth discussing in any detail, and it’s not even really worth discussing.
And you wonder why fight fans don’t know the up-and-coming talent, don’t care about quality undercard match-ups, and deem every fight card that gets rolled out unsatisfactory?
As I said last month, I think criticizing everything the UFC does is the new black, and being down on as many fights as possible is what the cool kids who cover the sport are doing now.
Finding the positive about a last minute pairing put together to save another event from ruin is lame, and investing time and energy into discussing anything other than the main event is a waste of time and energy. It’s far easier to sit down and complain about this fight card, even though it’s far superior to some of the other events that were rolled out this summer and features some intriguing match-ups. Figuring out why those undercard fights that got one sentence each are compelling would be too much to ask too.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and Wagenheim’s is that this card isn’t very good. Fine, but if that’s the case, why not dedicate some time and effort into shining a light on a better story? Why not delve a little deeper into this card, find a fighter amongst the 24 competing on Saturday night who presents a compelling narrative, and share that with the masses who get their UFC coverage – in part or in full – from Sports Illustrated?
Too many in the media accuse the UFC of offering watered-down fight cards that aren’t up to the audience’s lofty standards, but don’t hold themselves to the same expectations. When the UFC rolls out an event that is deemed sub-par, they’re taken to task by numerous scribes, but those same individuals get snarky and closed off when someone leaving a comment (or writing an article) calls them out for taking the easy road and delivering another 800 words of mediocrity to the volumes of coverage that already exist.
The UFC is called upon to do better, but very few of the journalists asking for improvements ask the same of themselves.
For them, rolling out tired narratives and content that is going to bring in the most traffic with the least amount of work is perfectly acceptable. Why pick up the phone and chase down quotes yourself when the UFC will send them right to your Inbox or you can grab some from the televised weigh-in special on Fuel TV? Better yet, someone with a lesser platform and greater work ethic will likely put together an interview themselves, so you can just wait around to fire up a link and follow it with block quote after block quote of their work for your own gain. If it was from a podcast or radio show, someone else probably went to the trouble of transcribing the interview, so you’ll have to give them a shout out and a link too.
The UFC aren’t the only people capable of helping move this sport forward.
Whether you want the role or not, the media plays a part in promoting fighters and events, and I firmly believe that one of the reasons fans are in an unsatisfied funk right now is because there are a number of journalists on influential platforms who never have anything positive to say about the UFC, and want no part in helping influence the change they so desperately call for in their columns.
There are few interviews with intriguing preliminary card fighters or feature stories on lesser known UFC newcomers, but the UFC are a bunch of jerks for not getting out there and building new stars. Everyone writes a “What’s next for the [insert events] winners?” piece when the event is over, but few put any time into identifying the up-and-comers fans should pay attention to now because it might pay dividends later before the fights start. Part of the reason breakout performances go unnoticed is because plenty of influential people are telling fans these fights and fighters aren’t worth watching in the first place, either directly or indirectly.
Casual fans aren’t overly familiar with Chris Weidman because his name isn’t plastered all over websites 24-7-365 because he doesn’t drive traffic numbers. I would wager that there have been more stories written about Jon Jones’ DUI and the UFC’s ratings this year than there have been about the undefeated middleweight contender, but the blame for Weidman not being a big enough draw rest solely on the shoulders of the UFC, right?
Here’s what I don’t understand:
We know this card – like many this year – was significantly impacted by injuries. With that in mind, isn’t a fight between the best fighter in the history of the sport and a tough veteran who is going to do his best to test him pretty solid, considering it was thrown together just a month ago?
This event is significantly better than both UFC 147 and UFC 149. Can’t we all agree that in an ideal world where injuries didn’t happen as frequently as they have this year, the UFC would have delivered a higher volume of meaningful fights, both overall and on a per event basis?
If you know all that and you still just want to tell everyone how much Silva vs. Bonnar is a meaningless fight that isn’t worth watching, and that this event is sub-par, have at it; nothing is going to break you from your negativity.
* * * * * * * *
Keep up with the latest from Keyboard Kimura by joining the Facebook page.
If you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow me (@spencerkyte) for even more MMA talk… and all kinds of randomness too.
