UFC 50 In Front Of Japanese Fans..

I rewatched my tape of UFC 50 and it occured to me again how uneducated the fans here in America are even after 50 UFC's. Aside from the ridiculous bias toward the Canadian fighters simply because they have French accents, the lack of understanding of the sport really came through Friday night. Anyone who's attended a UFC live knows how clueless and annoying the fans are.

If this event had been held in front of a Pride audience, the fans would have been ooohing and ahhhing at every change of position on the ground. Instead of booing Franklin-Riveria, they would have understood and applauded every transition in that great fight. Booing the very classy St. Pierre when he was complimenting Hughes after the fight was downright embarrassing to watch. As was the booing of Tito, forcing him to apologize for not KOing Cote, even prompting him to say "all Canadians are tough" in an effort to diffuse the misapplied nationalism.

The challenge for Dana and company is to educate the fans here so they will eventually accept the sport without forcing them to make it "boxing with small gloves" to gain public acceptance. Nowadays most fans look for boxing type KO's, blood and trash talking. That's why they can only show standup bouts on the new TV deals. As Dana said "the networks are terrified of the ground". Too bad... the mob attending UFC 50 was an embarrassment to the educated fans and even more so to the fighters.

edited

Kerri Kasem

i had a blast friday night...but i never understood why they booed soo much...especially against St. Pierre...that was pathetic...then there was some drunk fat guy a couple of rows behind me who kept screaming at the fighters....calling them pussies, girls, etc....i was like wtf...this guy would be shittin in his pants if any of those fighters confronted him...for the most part there were alot of good fans there...but like in anything else...there's always some that try to ruin it

alchohol makes people stupid. Not to mention that there is probably only 2% of the crowd actually trains and knows the sport. Everyone watches for different reasons - unless you actaully train it is sometimes hard to recognize the technique and skill being displayed.

Booing is always diguest me - I think they should have a courtesy announcement before the event begins - that says please refrain from booing or you will be ejected.

TM is correct. I went to a ufc with my wife(bad move) - I got the tickets free. I hated the experience. The crowd was full of f*cking beer drinking retards - and that is puttin it mildly. I almost threw down 3 or 4 times cause of retards harrassing my wife. the beer was pricey, u end up watching 99% of the fight on the video monitor because of obstructions in your view.

Now, I always buy the event and have my freinds over - its a much more pleasant experience.