UFC 226: Miocic vs Cormier

[Carbomb]

On the point about promotion and promoters, I agree with David 100%. I've even ranted about it before myself. Dana White is a complete bunglecunt when this sort of situation arises. So what if Ngannou had an ego? People in other jobs have to put up with all sorts of shit from colleagues, clients and customers all the time, but they have to keep a lid on what they really think because they know it's bad for business to behave otherwise. White takes all this sort of shit personally, and then vents his own ego (which makes the accusations he levelled at Ngannou, true or not, really fucking rich) in front of the MMA press on a regular basis.

And yes: it is the fucking promoter's job to promote. This idea of "the fighters need to promote themselves" is such typical fucking Yank capitalist "independent contractor/outsourcing/let's use any excuse not to give our workforce more than we think they deserve" bollocks, it's completely unsurprising from someone like White. If fighters are meant to promote themselves, what the hell is the promoter getting all that money for? Not to mention this whole thing raises the question: don't they have any fucking sense?! Don't they realise it's a co-operative effort? That if they don't promote their fighters to the best of their ability, they're not going to get the money they want? As an entrepreneur, surely you'd want to get every potential dollar possible from your work. And even if you disagree that that's how to do it, what earthly purpose does it serve to actively slag off your own fighters? Can anyone name a single potential benefit of doing that? Because I can't.

Quite frankly, the whole notion of expecting the fighters to promote themselves more than the promoter does just reeks of "pyramid scheme" to me. "We've made our money, now we don't have to do shit - let the fighters do their own thing, and watch the money roll in."

Yes, I'm aware I'm going to extremes with this. I understand that promoting is more than just promoting your fighters - they have to organise the events, the media, the advertising, etc. But the money they're getting paid is already ridiculous, and other people are risking their own health to help them make it, for much less pay. The least they can do is completely commit to the duties of the role they've assumed.

[jimufctna24]

The thing with Ngannou is that Dana contributed to his ego. He told the world that Ngannou was going to be a global rock star and that he looked like the heavyweight champion of the world. I get that Dana was in promotional mode when he made those claims and don't begrudge him for making them. But the UFC played a role in creating the monster that they are now stuck with. 

As for his most recent comments about Ngannou. Yeah, they are probably accurate and I understand why Dana is so frustrated. He invested a lot of time in Ngannou and it looked for a brief while that he'd found a new mega-draw, in a time when he sorely need one. But did those comments really need to be aired in public while Ngannou is still on the active roster? Probably not. 

[wandshogun09]

Spot on Jim. They always do this. The biggest example might've been Joe Rogan's over the top hype when Ronda Rousey was on top of the world. The 'she's not just the best ever, she's a once in a lifetime' and this, that and the other. I get that part of his job is to sell you on the hype but he was fucking incessant and going way overboard with it, even crying in front of Ronda herself when she was on his podcast. Then she has the losses to Holm and Nunes and Rogan's line now is 'she believed her own hype'.

And yeah, Dana is probably the most guilty of all for the swelling of Ngannou's ego. He went from being homeless to being talked up as the most terrifying heavyweight that's ever been created, by the most powerful voice in the MMA world no less, in the space of a few years. Of course it's going to go to his head. Dana said it was after the Overeem fight when Ngannou's ego went mad. But you didn't hear Dana say shit about it until he lost. So he can't have had that big a problem with it when he was winning. It only became a problem when he started losing. 

We've all seen how Dana often shits on fighters and throws them under the bus. He's publicly trashed the likes of Anderson, Aldo, Mighty Mouse, Nunes etc over the last couple of years. Either because they didn't perform to his liking, had the cheek to pick up an injury or didn't play ball on fighting who and when he wanted them to. And they were his champions when he slagged them off to the media. He's got terrible form for this stuff. He really is more of a demoter than a promoter a lot of the time. 

[Carbomb]

Y'know what the most exasperating thing about White is? When he's actually doing his job, he's really quite good at it. State of it.

[Egg Shen]

I sit somewhere in the middle with regards to the Ngannou thing. On one hand i see why people say Dana should protect him and almost make excuses to explain what happened on Saturday night. On the other hand you have to feel Ngannou deserved it, you are put on that platform and are expected to perform. The guy barely threw a punch in 3 rounds and pocketed $100,000 for it, i can understand why the promoter was pissed...should he air it in public? that's up for discussion but i think we've all learned that if Dana is pissed off he'll say what's on his mind, and again whether or not you think that's right or wrong, the fact that he's been incredibly successful at his job nails down any kind of argument you have against it.

[Carbomb]

25 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

I sit somewhere in the middle with regards to the Ngannou thing. On one hand i see why people say Dana should protect him and almost make excuses to explain what happened on Saturday night. On the other hand you have to feel Ngannou deserved it, you are put on that platform and are expected to perform. The guy barely threw a punch in 3 rounds and pocketed $100,000 for it, i can understand why the promoter was pissed...should he air it in public? that's up for discussion but i think we've all learned that if Dana is pissed off he'll say what's on his mind, and again whether or not you think that's right or wrong, the fact that he's been incredibly successful at his job nails down any kind of argument you have against it.

Don't agree with that bit at all. By that logic, he's exempt from any criticism because of his success. McMahon's success with WWE is indisputable, but I don't think there's a single person here, not even the most rabid McMahon fanboy, who'd argue his product has gone through lengthy periods of being complete toilet over the years because of some his decisions, whims, and ideas. 

Sure, White is and has been very successful. I'd argue he might have earned even more cash for the UFC if he hadn't been so egotistically petulant. Look at DJ - not enough accolades to give this guy. White throws a hissy fit because he refuses to fight TJ, and claims "DJ's always complaining, this was our attempt to push him, and he turned it down". What, dickhead? The great promoter doesn't have any other tricks up his sleeve to promote one of the GOAT, other than sticking him in a match at a weight he sustained his only losses at and left because he felt he couldn't progress? This is the big UFC strategy?

They take this "fighters should promote themselves" approach - the sole reason fucking promoters exist is to promote people who are not good at promoting themselves, for fuck's sake. Not everyone can be Sonnen or McGregor and do their job for them. People like DJ are the exact people who need promoters, and White went and threw him under the bus when he should've been helping him.

Ultimately, the reason why I have a problem with this side of White is because he isn't the one who suffers from bullshit like this - he'll always get his money. The fighters are the ones who pay when Caesar is not entertained.

EDIT: Sorry, just re-read. Just to clarify, I wasn't calling you a dickhead, Egg.

[Tamura]

In fairness to Dana White, it's hard to promote people that say things as stupid as Mighty Mouse does. Like the things he said when trying to talk his way into a fight with Conor (not that the UFC were ever likely to make that fight, but that's another story).

• 'Nowadays, everybody’s talking about big money fights, right,’
• ‘I am not afraid of one man in this whole UFC Octagon roster.
• ‘I truly don’t care. What’s going to happen to me? I lose? I get knocked out?
• ‘A lot of people are coming…’Ooh, fight him, he’s scared’, I’m like, ‘Dude. I will f*****g fight Conor McGregor for the biggest payday of my life.’
• ‘If I got knocked out, perfect.
• ‘Thanks, Conor. You weigh 170 pounds, but guess what? I’m just going to be laughing all the way to the bank.
• ‘But if you ask me who would I like to fight, and I know I’m going to make the most money, I’ll fight Conor McGregor.’

Why would anyone be willing to pay $50 (or however much they cost these days) to watch a match where one participant says he has zero chance of winning and is only looking for a payday? 

[Carbomb]

I don't know, man. I don't think they need to rely on his quotes. If anything, I'd say that sort of thing is [theproducers] exactly why [/theproducers] he needs a promoter and a marketing machine. A system that will gloss over his inability to articulate anything except stupid statements, and hype up all his strengths, i.e. that he's an amazing fighter that none of his contemporaries have ever come close to beating, that he's the longest-reigning champion in the UFC, that he's the only Flyweight champion, that he beat a guy with a German suplex-to-armbar combo, that he's never been beaten at Flyweight, etc. etc. There's more than enough there for the UFC to work with, and they've managed to put videos together for fights less appealing than that. That's why it's so aggravating: they've shown they can promote almost any fight they want when they want to.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

Dana White is not a promoter. He is the president of the UFC. That's his job role. His job is to protect the UFC not promote fighters.

[jimufctna24]

Dana is an odd case. 

Once upon a time, he was a good front-man for the sport in some ways. He made himself accessible to the fans through media scrums and interviews with Helwani. Similar to what Eddie Hearn does with IFL today. He came across as having his finger on the pulse and was a removal from the crusty old boxing promoters that fight fans were used to. It also helped that the likes of Gary Shaw, Tom Atencio and other MMA money marks made Dana and the UFC look competent in comparison. 

But how much of the UFC's success is really down to Dana? And how much of it is down to Lorenzo Fertitta? I get the impression that Fertitta acted as a filer for Dana. Left to his own devices, Dana is too emotional and lets personal feelings get the better of him. With Lorenzo gone who is left to rein Dana in? The new owners come across as clueless. Sometimes it feels like it's the blind leading the blind. 

 

[the_mole]

3 minutes ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

Dana White is not a promoter. He is the president of the UFC. That's his job role. His job is to protect the UFC not promote fighters.

Spot on, Dana's job is to promote the UFC, not a singular fighter, all their top fighters haven't fought in 2_years but they still get big TV deals. Conor hasn't fought MMA since November 2016, Rousey retired around the same time, Brock went back to the WWE, the Diaz brothers are not fighting (and ones going to court for domestic violence? Jones & Anderson are suspended and GSP has fought once in 5 years.  They can't put anyone above the brand, this isn't Boxing were a promoter will try and protect his star(as he's usually only one fighters promoter) The brand counts for more, ESPN knew Conor or any top in their prime star isn't fighting on ESPN, unless he loses a few fights and drawing ability goes down. The only thing constant is the UFC brand and yes bigger stars help and in 3 years we are probably talking about new stars but who knows.

Nganno did shit the bed too, wasn't it the least amount of strikes in a UFC fight and his opponent apologized and mentioned having a sore back. He probably needs to go to a top 5 camp, Mike Perry looked really improved and much improved just by moving to Jackson-Winks camp.

[Carbomb]

23 minutes ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

Dana White is not a promoter. He is the president of the UFC. That's his job role. His job is to protect the UFC not promote fighters.

OK. Then how does slagging off fighters on their own roster protect the UFC?

[jimufctna24]

If Dana's role is to promote the brand then slagging off the fighters isn't the wisest move. I get that he might be trying to convince the public that a minority of fighters are bad apples, and not representative of the UFC brand, but it doesn't really work in that way. 

Dana and the UFC brand do not have much good-will with the public. The double standards and gaffes they have made over the years are too many to mention. Plus, he has slagged off too many fighters over the years for people to believe that the UFC brand is pure and only ruined by a few unruly individuals. As Wand stated above, he has publicly slagged off numerous World Champions and other notable fighters. His reasons for doing so have often been silly and transparently so. 

All he does is make himself look like a tit, while potentially undermining the reputation of the fighter he is criticising. 

 

 

 

[d-d-d-dAz]

Slagging of Ngannou is absolutely the logical move for the UFC.

Their positioning in the market is as the elite MMA competition in the world and their public relations persona is that of a populist: so their pitch to the market as a whole, and their key differentiator, is ‘we have the best fighters’ (I.e. we’re the only place for elite competition, if you’re a fan watch us, if you’re a fighter work for us) and ‘we’re going to make the fights the fans want to see’ (which makes a Lesnar/Cormier or a Conor/Nate acceptable).

Ngannou left UFC 226 where you can’t make the argument that he’s the former (no one’s saying he’s a P4P star any time), nor are fans clamouring for him to get back in there. If you’re the UFC, and you’re based on a brand first business model, why associate with that? Why say ‘hey, shit happens, this can happen to anyone?’ Because then you can start insidiously laying the seed in fans minds that those sort of fights can happen on any show.

It’s absolutely logical to get out in front and blame Ngannou’s performance on an external factor. ‘It’s his ego’...boom, let’s box that off and forget about it. It was HIS fault.

Even if Dana had gone down the route of just saying ‘hey, the loss got to him’ that’s a risky move too: everyone loses, so can they all turn to shit?

It’s morally questionable sure, but if you don’t fit with in the value proposition of the UFC’s business model (elite and/or ‘popular at the time’) then you should absolutely expect to be thrown under the bus and to have it pointed out why your performance is no reflection on the UFC, nor does it have any impact on any future UFC shows.

Brand first, baby.

It’s morally dubious, but if my job title was UFC President id have done the same thing.

[Egg Shen]

10 hours ago, Carbomb said:

 

EDIT: Sorry, just re-read. Just to clarify, I wasn't calling you a dickhead, Egg.

😂