it feels like all the recent cards are "building" cards, MMA or UFC i should say is slowly moving into a boxing type card with a BIG mani event and than undercard fillers where its obvious who is going to win in most fights.UFC 55 IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THIS.A reason i like mma is because guys dont go through this crappy "building" matches (except crocop and wandy in the past).
Im just not interested (well not as interested) seeing these kind of fights. LET SAKARA, BABLU AND VERA FIGHT BETTER FIGHTERS!
I mean babalu fought wiuff 1st who was on a real high and cutting to 205, than he fought chael sonnen and now MVA ? That means HIS first fight was probably his hardest. Sakara will have fought fairclough and elvis...
vera..scherner and eilers...
come on man.Rampage said it best regarding his latest offer "in japan i'll get paid less to fight harder opponents whereas in usa i'll get paid more (with sponsership" to fight easier opponents-you do the math"
The rosters r soo deep now LW has been cut that they can afford to let top fighters fight more often.I mean chuck and randy r there too biggest draws yet they only gohuht twice this year..thats a joke.kenny florian has had more ufc fights this year than chuck???
I thought the whole point of winning in the ufc was that you get to step up in competition and eventually fight for the title.IE.
A VS B
C VS. D
IF A & C win I thought THEY were either meant to fight each other (lawler-diaz, diaz-parisyan) or fight a vet coming DOWN from the top. (like ricco-pete williams).
The NEW ufc formula is if you win a fight you get to fight fighters on the same level or lower as your first win until you have a few wins in a row and than you get a title shot (karo parisyan & nate quarry). I know which method I prefer as a fan
but i think all we are going to see happen is the champs are going to get easier title fights because its going to become easier to get a string of wins in the ufc.
I sldo dont want to see motre watered down cards containing great fighter but where its obvious who is going to win most fights bar the main event
It doesn't look to me hugely different than what they have done in the past. They often match vets with new fighters. I don't always agree with that, but it's not something new.
And you know, Sinosic was booked as a stepping stone for a challenger once before... when he fought Jeremy Horn. That didn't turn out so well for Mr. Horn. I would say that Mr. Sakara is far less accomplished at this point than Horn was then.
If you don't build guys up a little no fans will know who they are and care to watch them fight. If guys fight top competition each and every fight nobody would be deserving of a title shot because all of the contenders are going to lose sooner or later thus not deserve a title shot. Its a tough call and hardcore MMa fans want to see the best match ups possible but the hardcore MMA fans aren't paying the bills these days, its the new fans that need to learn about these fighters.
Matchmaking is not as easy as you think. You think that 'cause Babalu subbed Sonnen and Travis they are not top caliber guys? Vera got a fight vs. an opponent that came in with only one loss to a very good fighter and 4 wins by submission back to back x4.
That is one of the great things about MMA we never know what can happen in a fight.
BUILDER CARDS = New fighters fighting for the right to stay in the UFC.
SET CARDS = Known stars of the UFC fighting to achieve a specific ranking. These are the good cards.
But then again, My favorite thing to do is to scout talented fighters before they are found by a promotion. KOTC, ROTR, RITC, DEEP, ICON, etc are all great places to find rising stars so I also like the BUILDER shows too.
Soon there will need to be another "set" of cards in which the TUF guys face regular competition. SO far its been on the "Set-Cards, but we'll move from that soon enough as the sport grows bigger anf bigger.