Yo, it’s the last month of the year and we have Edwards vs Covington coming up, a few fight nights, plus some non-UFC events. Feel free to discuss the hot fights/events along with whatever else is on your mind.
Yo, it’s the last month of the year and we have Edwards vs Covington coming up, a few fight nights, plus some non-UFC events. Feel free to discuss the hot fights/events along with whatever else is on your mind.
So, the first thing I wanna vent about without actually spamming anyone of you is that I found PFL to be surprisingly shit. I sat through the recent event, all hyped for good MMA show that is not brought about by some hypercapitalist, advertisement-plastered, WWE fake shit pulling organisation (without actually going to the trenches of finding the few good fights in regional promotions…). But oh my lawd, it felt they tried to fucking outdo the UFC and their terrible gimmicks like the awful celebrity tweets or the commentator cam after a knockout. I just wanna watch some fights with beautiful violence and they fucking overlay Wiz Khalifa on a two-second delay EVERY FUCKING ROUND. Is there anyone in the world who thinks this is a good addition? How do you even come up with that – “hey, maybe the fights will be shite anyways, so let’s have some interview on the side in case the viewers are bored and ruined be TikToK anyways”?! It screams “please, please have Jake Paul fans post about us” to me instead of actually being in there to deliver a good FIGHTING show.
On the other hand I found it funny how it kinda exposed the basic analysis we often get. Like, Jake Paul generally didn’t say much else than what we get to hear from the commentators, only with less speaking skills. But that might be (even more than the rest) personal preference – some people apparently like the hype man stuff.
I get that the PFL is backed by similar(ly terrible) folks, so why expect something else. But I at least hoped for them not copying the UFC concept of trying to seem all mainstream and just throwing more money at basically the same thing. The tournament format is fun and the perfect example of what I’d hoped for – offering an alternative to the UFC concept, backed by enough money to make it fun to watch. More like ONE maybe. Alas the acquisition of Bellator seems to point in the opposite direction even here, with them announcing to organise regular fights outside the tournament style. But who knows, maybe I’m judging to fast and they are planning to experiment with stuff like different fight rules, different gloves, open scoring or more judges, a subscription model without advertisement, making fighter pay transparent.
Okay, not all of that stuff is properly thought-out and I wouldn’t normally write things like this down for strangers to see and judge, but maybe we can get some discussion going here ;)
I’m with you on PFL. ONE has a different look and high quality feel, but the commentary and Chatri worship need work. I still prefer it to what PFL is doing. I’m also over all of the official sponsors plastered everywhere and the sponsor shoutouts.
Yeah, ONE definitely isn’t it, but at least they are trying more stuff with advancing different rulesets and the Muay Thai focus, mixed rules fights and so on.
I think ONE is the closest to challenging the UFC in quality fights and production value. I actually prefer the ONE production to UFC. I also like the mixed fight types a lot. They rarely have two boring fights in a row due to the format.
I think ONE is just much better produced than PFL and Bellator.
It depends on what you think production quality entails, I guess. I am sure there are people out there that think having a champ cam and a Wiz Khalifa commentary overlaid makes for great production quality for example. What do you like about the ONE production?