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.