the_mole Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 At least Chael managed to get on mainstream sports shows, granted you could tell they thought he was a clown but he usually made you laugh with his nonsense. Covington doesn't have a goat to go after and his stuff isn't funny and is xenophobic (I know some if Chaels stuff was too) but as much as he might get stuff written about him, nobody is interested on social media or MMA websites and it may get 10-20 comments at best, Connor says anything and its 300 comments and retweeted thousands of times, even Woodley is much more popular. Covington was interviewed by Josh Mathews on Xplosion, it might still be on their (they keep the last 5 episodes) but that is less mainstream than a Sherdog interview but it is him being interviewed outside MMA circles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Covington is just doing what everyone says they want fighters to do. If he didn't talk shit he'd just be another bland no-name, wouldn't he? Would you all rather he kept his mouth shut and did the old "I'll fight anyone they put in front of me" schtick in post-fight interviews? Can't have it both ways, folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted March 2, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 Indeed, David. I must dig Covington's schtick because I'm proper invested in seeing folk maul him. Where the gimmick ends and the actual man begins is up for debate, but Covington is like an old school heel, in that he'll do or say anything (no matter how reprehensible or racist) to get you to hate him. He's done his job, though. We're discussing him and how much of a shite he is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 2, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 I don't care about Covington. It's not a dislike in a Frank Mir way where I badly wanted to see Mir get a twatting. It's apathy with Covington. He's shit and even his trolling is boring, infantile bollocks. I've never said I wanted people to fake trash talk either. So I can have it both ways Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 50 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: I don't care about Covington. It's not a dislike in a Frank Mir way where I badly wanted to see Mir get a twatting. It's apathy with Covington. He's shit and even his trolling is boring, infantile bollocks. I've never said I wanted people to fake trash talk either. So I can have it both ways We can't really blame him for how he goes about his business though, can we? We've seen the fighters that the UFC reward, and it's usually the guys who talk the most. Covington is exactly the type of fighter I've mentioned a few times in the past, when I said that we'll end up with these guys who are just acting up for the cameras because it's been shown as the way to get ahead. His patter is cringeworthy at best, and downright infantile and offensive at worst, but he's simply a product of the times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 The people that are successful are the people that cultivate a character that is an extension of themselves (sounds familiar, right?). That way it can be big, larger than life, ridiculous... whatever, but it still somehow sounds and seems natural. GSP, Anderson, Brock, Ronda, JJ, Nate, Conor: the biggest stars of the sport are those that became ‘characters’ that are just a version of themselves pointed in the right direction by the UFC marketing team. Colby isn’t a product of the time so much as he is a product of a wave of fighters who don’t fully understand what makes someone successful. You can’t blame him for trying, and he’s so outrageous that people talk about him, but it’ll never click on the level he wants as it’s so clearly an immature act. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 2, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 It doesn't matter if a billion people talk about him if nobody gives a fuck about his fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 40 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said: The people that are successful are the people that cultivate a character that is an extension of themselves (sounds familiar, right?). That way it can be big, larger than life, ridiculous... whatever, but it still somehow sounds and seems natural. GSP, Anderson, Brock, Ronda, JJ, Nate, Conor: the biggest stars of the sport are those that became ‘characters’ that are just a version of themselves pointed in the right direction by the UFC marketing team. Colby isn’t a product of the time so much as he is a product of a wave of fighters who don’t fully understand what makes someone successful. You can’t blame him for trying, and he’s so outrageous that people talk about him, but it’ll never click on the level he wants as it’s so clearly an immature act. Here's the thing though, being a person with some sort of personality is a prerequisite for any real success in pro wrestling, isn't it? If you're a bland, average person you're likely not going to make many waves. With MMA though, personality isn't a prerequisite. Or at least it shouldn't be. To even make it to the UFC you have to be a talented fighter (well, maybe not so much these days, but still). Being a colourful personality is certainly a bonus, but there isn't as much reliance on that as there is in something like pro wrestling. Where we're starting to see some problems is where the UFC have spent the past few years sending out the message that all but the highest level of fighters need to have some sort of character to see any real success (and more importantly, money). That's all well & good, but what about the guys who are excellent fighters but don't really have much about them? What if someone is simply a bland cunt but gets the job done in the cage? Okay, they're never going to be among the top earners most likely but there has to be a place for them as well, and that place has to be more than an afterthought. Guys like Covington are a product of the time, because he's obviously going down a path that he's not suited to or even all that comfortable with from what I've seen. The reason for that? Because he's seen enough to know that no matter how many wins he strings together he's always at risk of having any potential title shot he earns pulled from under him if, for example, Nate Diaz decides he wants to end his near two-year hiatus and roll into a welterweight shot against T-Wood. Covington's 8-1 UFC record, including his five-fight streak with wins over the likes of Maia and Dong Hyun Kim will matter not a fucking jot, because despite Diaz last win against a welterweight not called McGregor being Marcus Davis almost eight years ago we all know where that title shot would go. So yeah, Covington is absolutely terrible at playing the hype game. But y'all better get used to it, because there's gonna be more terrible acts than decent ones down the line if things continue as they are. Fighters for the most part will do whatever it takes to make money, even if that means making a roaring cunt of themselves to get into the headlines, especially when there's no alternative really. Are big characters and personalities required to sell PPV's? Of course, no one is denying that. But unless we want every single fighter to become a cookie-cutter version of McG (which we're seeing now, with the influx of suits and stupid sunglasses indoors) there has to be something of a balance, where fighters are shown that even if they don't have a rapid-fire wit or the ability to become the focal point of any room they enter there's still a place for them where they can earn good dough and plough their own path. I long for the days when we'd see a plethora of characters in MMA, ranging from sharp-suited "money" types, to all-American jeans and t-shirt wearing local-boy-done-good types. In a way, it's actually more boring now. There's so many fighters shouting and trying to hype fights that it's close to becoming just white noise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 I agree with you wholeheartedly. Provided people don't whinge that those with skills AND personality will inevitably make more money. There should be avenues for talented but dull people to make money, you're right. And yes, it is more boring now that everyones trying their luck. But it's because people aren't willing to accept that a) there's a ceiling to these things, and there can only be so many 'stars' at any one time and b) not everyone can earn that big McGregor money. The balance should be, and has always been in boxing, that if you're a good fighter with a great record you'll make money. But, if you're a good fighter with a great record and a personality that hooks then you'll make more money. I think MMA being so young, there's a lot of fighters struggling to come to terms with the connective tissue that combines those two points. Obviously, it's complicated by the nature of the UFC calendar. Fighters don't take on as many fights, and there's no mandatory challengers, so promoters often end up choosing between title contenders and big names. And we all know which way that goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 It's for this very reason that I'd prefer to see the titles remain completely merit-based as far as opportunities go. If a fighter knows that he can effectively win his way to a shot at a title and thus the chance to make champion-level money then it changes the ball game for fighters like Covington, doesn't it? The top personalities are always going to be earning more and fighting in the more hyped fights, that's absolutely fine, but there has to be something for those who aren't gifted in that department to aim for. At the moment there's really nothing for them, because the new owners are using the titles in the same way as pro wrestling does, which is as props for the top guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted March 2, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 15 minutes ago, David said: So yeah, Covington is absolutely terrible at playing the hype game. But y'all better get used to it, because there's gonna be more terrible acts than decent ones down the line if things continue as they are. Fighters for the most part will do whatever it takes to make money, even if that means making a roaring cunt of themselves to get into the headlines, especially when there's no alternative really. Or it means that, just as the actual combat sport evolves, the trash-talking will also evolve, and only those who are any good at it will get any traction. The fact we're discussing how shit Covington's trash-talk is, and how he induces people to switch off instead of tune in, would suggest that. After all, this is a basic premise of salesmanship, all the way from the days of P.T. Barnum: you have to be engaging and interesting, and just slagging people off like a humourless dick won't draw interest. You may not like him, and I'm certainly coming to dislike him a fair bit, but McG is good at the trash-talk enough to make fans of those who enjoy his patter, and to get those who hate it so wound up they want to see him lose. Covington doesn't have that; one could even argue that he's so inept at it, that he's made it obvious what he's doing, and whilst people can indeed be "sold" to, they don't like it when it's so obvious (it's part of why Cena and Reigns have drawn such vocal ire from a portion of the WWE crowd). As it is, going from their respective written/verbal outputs, I'd much rather see ColBol fight than ColCov. Ultimately, I think it's fair to say that we all agree with your point that it should be a meritocracy, that that is very much the ideal, but we've had this debate so many times on this very forum now, and you're not going to convince anyone, and no-one's going to convince you, that this will, or should, happen. If you want to point fingers, blame human society: from time immemorial, people have been closer to magpies than apes, being interested and drawn in by the next shiny thing they see, and this is something that has been established over centuries, millennia, of combat sports. It's all very well trying to make out that this sort of thing only belongs in pro-wrestling, but you can't make out it's a completely separate and irrelevant thing in the context of this discussion. How did pro-wrestling get to where it is? It didn't start out as the performance industry we see now, it was a legitimate combat sport that eventually realised it could make more money with all the frills and fripperies than it could with the actual meat and potatoes of real wrestling ability and sporting competition. Of course, we don't want MMA to end up like pro-wrestling; indeed, it could be argued that so many former and current wrestling fans have turned to MMA because they see in it what they perceived wrestling to have once been back in the mists of time. I'm sure there are many MMA fans like yourself who are worried that this could be the case, that the trash-talk and deliberately ramped-up personalities are the thin end of the wedge to gradually force open the door to sheer panto in the way wrestling did. But I don't believe there's any fear of that, because, unlike wrestling, MMA is governed by legitimate sporting bodies who will prosecute if they suspect any shenanigans going on in terms of match-fixing - they're not brilliant on most other things, but that is something they appear to be particularly paranoid about. In the final analysis, you're arguing against something that was established long ago in wrestling, boxing, hell - perhaps even in the gladiatorial contests in ancient Roman circuses. It seems odd to rail against that in MMA when it's pretty much a fait accompli by this point. I very much agree with you in that there has been of late a tendency to go overboard with the business side of things in making decisions, as I said last year: this is both a business and a sport, and the UFC, like other MMA promotions, is in the business of sport, which means its marketability is rooted in showing that they have the best sporting talent and consequently can offer the best in sporting competition in MMA. The frequent reliance recently on gimmick or freakshow fights, or unnecessary interim title fights, if continued, could undermine that, and that isn't desirable for a sport which has had to fight, from the get-go, a mainstream public perception that is the diametric opposite of how it would like to be seen. BUT: it is still a business. If we want to see those legit athletes who can entertain the truly appreciative fans, it needs to make money, or it won't survive. The key to that is drawing in fans, and that is why I say again: if you're looking to blame someone, blame people. People like Coldplay, people voted for Hitler, and people pay to see MMA fights when they think the fighter they like is going to win and say something interesting, or the fighter they hate is going to get pounded into the ground and cry afterwards. People are not to be trusted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted March 2, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 2 hours ago, David said: It's for this very reason that I'd prefer to see the titles remain completely merit-based as far as opportunities go. If a fighter knows that he can effectively win his way to a shot at a title and thus the chance to make champion-level money then it changes the ball game for fighters like Covington, doesn't it? Not necessarily, Covington isn't just talking an insane amounts of shit, he's also 8-1 in one of the deepest divisions in the UFC, he also holds a win over Demian Maia so his #3 ranking is warranted and earned if we follow the UFC ranking system, the shit talking is just on top of it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 2, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 He probably realises he's one of the most boring cunts on the roster bell to bell so he's trying to overcompensate with his gobbing off. I think he's 100% looked at Chael as his blueprint. Which seems like a decent plan on paper. Chael wasn't the most exciting fighter once the cage door closed (he was like fucking Arturo Gatti compared to this Covington pleb though) but his mouth and charisma made people want to see his fights. I get why he's trying to do it. He's just really, really shite at it. There's no wit or charm in what he's saying or tweeting like Chael often had. There's no intelligence to it like with Ali's stuff in his early years. There's no soundbitey stuff or funny lines like we used to get from McGregor. Nothing amusing and quirky like Eubank Thenior in the 90s. There's not even really the car crash curiosity of 'what the fuck is he going to say/do next?' like with Nick Diaz or Tyson back in the day. He's just Colby 'Try Hard With A Vengeance' Covington trying to be something he's not and then stinking the joint out when he fights. I'm glad Werdum lobbed a boomerang at the dull prick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted March 2, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 but still we talk about him. I don't disagree with you wand. but like i said previously, Covington gets more press than 90% of the UFC roster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 2, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 2, 2018 You're right but in the end he's in the fight business and it seems like nobody cares when he fights. I bet even his mum falls asleep during his fights. His antics get people on message boards talking for half an hour but I don't think it will translate into any kind of buzz for his fights. He's basically Angela Magana with a dick and a double-leg. Fuck, I actually think I was more invested in seeing Vinegar Tits fight than I am this dork. Unless he can find a way to make this shit get people interested in seeing him fight, he'll continue to just be the sad twat trying to get into the party who nobody wants there. I wish he'd just fuck off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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