There was a thread recently posted that made me think a bit. It was about the causal fan and how it's not that easy to follow who's who on UFC events.
Ufc needs to develop a ranking system for their fighters. Share it during PPV events, next to names of fighters, so the casual fan can follow.
With a rankings system, the match-ups on PPV main cards should be those of highly ranked fighters. Guys who are ranked lower should be on the under cards or fox/fx/fuel events. I think it would cause the lower ranked fighters to work harder as they would now know their position within a weight class. Highly ranked fighters may also fight harder as there would be no fear of being cut. What you would also avoid is potential ducking by fighters who do not recognize someone that is on their level, as on their level.
With a true rankings system, you can do weight class specific events and you wouldn't really need a full time matchmaker as the fights should consist of very closely ranked fighters. keep the grudge matches, freak-shows (warm up fights) and up-and-comer fights off of PPV main cards. You can use those kinds of fights as the last fight on the televised prelim cards in hopes that it will be an exciting lead in to the PPV card. Quarterly events that are stacked with title fights would be pretty huge too.
To avoid all of the instant rematches, contenders who lose a title fight, drop down a few points and have to work their way back up to their next title fight. You would also have the ability to truly say who is next in line for the title fight and the public will not have to hear 20 different names of who is next in line every time someone wins a fight. Not everyone can be the #2 guy.
I think this is the one thing that prevents people from recognizing MMA as a "real sport" and without it, the comparisons to pro wrestling are reinforced.
Oh, and make your interim champs defend the belt at least once...
As an admitted stream watcher, this would make the events exciting again and I would go back to buying PPV events if they had some structure.
Just some thoughts. Sorry if their not concise enough, but you get the idea.
Any input?
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FRAT
but really, I agree with the rankings being needed it makes it very hard for new and casual fans to follow fighters and stuff. I understand the reasoning behind not doing it, but to become a credible mainstream sport, they really need to. 
Nexuscrawlers - FRAT
but really, I agree with the rankings being needed it makes it very hard for new and casual fans to follow fighters and stuff. I understand the reasoning behind not doing it, but to become a credible mainstream sport, they really need to.
I agree with this form of rankings because it takes opinion out of the equation.
Opinion would definitely be there once the initial rankings would be placed, but after that it would sort itself out eventually as fights happen. 
bearockbrobama -There's no way to remove opinion from the ranking process. Even FightMatrix makes assumptions about value. Look at the mess that is the ranking of college football. Opinion is not only unavoidable, it might even make for good television.Nexuscrawlers - FRATI agree with this form of rankings because it takes opinion out of the equation.
but really, I agree with the rankings being needed it makes it very hard for new and casual fans to follow fighters and stuff. I understand the reasoning behind not doing it, but to become a credible mainstream sport, they really need to.
DanChow - Get it in the Olympics ASAP, then it is considered a legit sport.
Is american football not a legitimate sport?
Needs more exposure on cable sports news shows, newspapers, etc...
Rcs476 -DanChow - Get it in the Olympics ASAP, then it is considered a legit sport.Is american football not a legitimate sport?
Only in America!