I'm starting to think about girls now myself...
NOPE
FloridaStriker - It's called growing up fren
two grown men in a cage beating on each other can only be so entertaining for so long.
Well, in fact everything can only be so entertaining for so long.
How about 22 grown men chasing after a soccer ball or grown men trying to get a golf ball into a hole... and so on
Everything is in the eye of the beholder
No... but really good matchmaking is rare. The last UFC was totally lame. I enjoyed ufc 98 machida vs. evans though.
Einux - Anyone else feel like this.
Personally I feel like the "stand and and wang" bug has (thanks largely to pressure from Dana and company) ruined MMA.
As of now, 90% of the time we end up with either a slop-box match for 15 minutes, or a guy scoring takedowns and rabbit punch for 15 minutes.
Never thought I would say it, but Im getting burnt out on MMA. Maybe in the future the skill level will go up again.
I'm losing interest compared to how zealous of a fan I've been since I was an acne ridden 15 year old, completely ignorant about martial arts AND sports, thinking, "FINALLY: the Kumite is GONNA BE ON TV!!!" after I saw the commercials for UFC 2 or 3. I finally stopped getting EVERY SINGLE event on PPV about 5 years ago, and I certainly don't get all of them now that they're $50-55 (for HD), at least every 1.5 months, and a lot of the cards just don't seem intriguing to me (I think the event with Arlovski vs. Buentello was the first one that I literally forgot about...that's happened many times since the Zuffa blitz began), I don't feel the need to burn all of them to DVD (partly because I can just buy them or whatever for $15-20 a few months later), and my gigantic tape collection stopped growing exponentially.
None of that has anything to do with the skill level. I think the skill level is amazing. There are a lot of elite athletes or people with elite athletic potential who, since they were never that into conventional sports, would've otherwise been an accountant or something right now, but they went into MMA. It didn't take very long for kickboxers, jiu-jitsu, or just all-around MMA style fighters to be able to fight off an Olympic wrestler's takedown, nor did it take very long for non-strikers to reach the level of striking to keep world class kickboxers on their toes (if not knock them out), and how many guys have totally schooled jiu-jitsu or other sub style guys at their own game? All that started happening by 2000, and now it's not even considered remarkable.
I always imagined, especially after I started training in 97, that grappling would become 10x more technical every year but it would also become much less of a factor in most fights. Why? Because fighters would eventually learn to take striking more seriously, that it would decide a lot of fights, and that, since the angles and rules for striking are basically the same as K-1, European/"Oriental Rules" style muay Thai would be what most fighters gravitated too, as traditional boxing type striking is suicidal for MMA (and K-1). So everyone's worst nightmare would be a good striker who knows how to fight the takedown and/or frustrate the hell out of a bad ass grappler.
(Why, yes, there are many responsibilities that come with being omnipotent!)
I hate watching 2 crappy strikers decide to duke it out too, so I feel your pain. But I don't think the skill level is going downhill at all.
Watch Strikeforce.
Einux. I agree.
I used to REALLY look forward to it and never want to miss a fight.
Now it's like....Ehhhh. Not that big a deal anymore.
I do NOT think Dana ruined it though. I think the American public did and their love for boxing and street fights.
I thought the Stevenson-Diaz fight was one of the better fights I have seen in a long time. And the Lytle fight really drove me nuts.
No
I was very disappointed in Strikeforce Challengers... the refs in particular, not the fighters. It seems like Strikeforce has no respect for anything but standing and banging. Every time someone took the fight to the ground and was actually working something, the refs stood them up. I can understand if they are on the ground and at a standstill. But they were standing them up when someone was midway through working some type of submission. Even a grappler who I love to watch, Shayna Baszler, was mysteriously standing the whole time, even though she has some of the most creative submission skills I've seen in the woman's division. Seems like Strikeforce told her she better stand or she'd be out. That's the only thing that makes sense. There bias against grapplers seems to be more of the same ole same ole that we got from EliteXC. Very disappointed Strikeforce! I bought two ringside tickets (6th row) to August 15th and now I'm worried it will be a disappointment. I did not get into MMA to watch boxing exclusively. If I want boxing, I'll go watch a legitimate boxing match. I'm sick that MMA is now appealing to the meatheads who don't care about anything but a boxing match.
Yes, I didn't bother watching the last UFC and appearently didn't miss much. There are simply too many shows on and there is a lot more to life than just fighting.
I kind of agree with Einux, it seems like most learn JJ just to be able to counter it and avoid a sub rather than to actually sub someone. Same with wrestling most seem to try to just avoid a take down and don't really try for one. This results in mostly stand up fighting between guys who could never compete with even a good mid level boxer. All the other skills are cancelled out. Maybe its just a natural progression of the sport but i miss the old days.
I just wish there were better matchups on a more regular basis... normally, the popular guys are the closest to the top, and they only fight once a year (sometimes 2 times), and it is just strange to see them, and if they lose, we dont hear from them for 8 months.
agree w OP
no
I wouldn't say I'm losing interest. But it surely isn't the same as watching fights like Ortiz vs. Shamrock or A. Silva vs. Franklin or Couture vs. Sylvia....or pretty much any Pride event and getting those goose bumps. Now it's like the majority of the events are just another fight card. Rarely do I ever get pumped up for a fight card like I used to.
There are still a few guys that I will always tune in to watch. But it just seems that the amount of time guys USED to spend on cleaning up and refining there skills, is now spent in strentgh training.
The real monsters are the guys who are both skilled, and great athletes (ala GSP) but that is few and far between.
To me at least, it seems more and more that the sport is moving away from being highly skilled fighters, to highly conditioned athletes who are so-so in every area, but really in reality......lackluster overall.
Thats not to mention the wave of "so-so in every area" fighters who arn't good enough athletes to really pull it off in the first place....
Guess it makes you really appreciate guys like Fedor, GSP, Anderson, and Torres a whole lot more.
Things will probly change in a few years, when guys start training from birth (ala boxing).
In the mean time we are going to have to deal with leigons of guys who "want to be UFC fighters", and start there training late in life.
I feel that judging as of late has been bringing the sport down as a whole, as it seems that no two fights are scored the same way. One fight will be scored based on damage dealt, and another fight based solely on take downs even when no GnP is done after the take down. Until there is a scoring system where every fight is scored the same way, you never know what will happen when a fight goes to decision. By the way, this is my first post on the UG, I'm glad to be here
i am starting to lose interest in ufc events part of me wishes they would space them out a little more to create more interesting matchups. but i have been enjoying the other promotions like dream and affliction. i'm more excited for afflictions next card than ufc 100 at this point.
It does seem more and more fights are 15 minutes of boxing and the odd leg kick and grabbing legs along the cage. and yes compared to pro boxers MMA boxing is terrible.
it's just that they have way too many cards now. people are desensitized to it now. i'd much rather wait 2-3 months and see a card full of nothing but the best than to see 1 card or more a month with it being okay at best. it doesn't really matter though because people will continue to pay to see this BS.