I'm not burned out on MMA, but the lank of understandable ranking in the UFC, the injury curse, some of the lackluster cards that have been put together, and entirely too much drama has dimmed the lights a bit for me.

The year has seemed lousy to me. The only PPV I've bothered with was Henderson vs. Shogun. I still consider myself an avid fan because I visit MMAJunkie and CagePotato on a daily basis. For me, this year has been lame for two major reasons: 1) Injuries, and 2) UFC monopoly.
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The injuries are becoming infuriating. Why is this the new thing? UFC fighter insurance? Stupidity in training? I don't get it. What changed that fighters are now dropping like flies? I don't even get stoked about announced cards anymore because I've become so cynical. I don't even call MMAJunkie, "MMAJunkie" anymore. I call it "MMAInjuryReport". I log on every day to see who pulled out of the next major card due to injury.
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I don't like relying on one promotion to feed me good MMA. I liked the old days when Japan, and even Europe, were putting on cards and forcing the UFC to keep it's game up. Bellator had a great year last year, but they seem to be mailing it in for the time being. Perhaps they're just gearing up for Spike, but this latest season has been poorly promoted. With Strikeforce owned by the UFC (and on life support), it won't be annoying the UFC, forcing them to up their game.
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Has the "golden era" of MMA faded. I remember telling friends during the Pride vs. UFC days to enjoy the ride because "these are the good ole' days." I'm hoping I'm wrong. Only time will tell.

You could do a Top 10 List of Top Ten Lists.

I am personally NOT burned out of the sport, but I agree with everyone that this year the sport felt less SPECIAL. I honestly think that the transition to Fox was the nail in the coffin. If you want a PPV model, then you have to treat the sport like my wife does sex, cut it off until I'm going crazy and then ask me to pay for it when there is an opportunity. $60 is a cheap hooker, so I gladly pay it up. I loved arguing with Football douches about why MMA was a great sport and that they were wrong about the violence, etc. Now, it's on Fox, and I have to explain that not every fight lasts 15 rounds like in boxing (JDS v. Cain).

That being said, I love the sport for what it is, a sport. I watch for the technique and the competition. I'm one of those weird guys that doesn't care if the guy wins by lay and hump, if that's what it takes to win, go right ahead. I also get giddy as a schoolgirl when Anderson Silva gets in the cage in hopes that I see something great.

The UFC needs to evolve quickly. The Ultimate Fighter is early reality show ... it needs a facelift. My friend is a reality show producer and can't believe it's still on the air in the format its in. People need stories these days, not mayhem.

@ Ben

I have always ALWAYS thought Strikforce cards were better than UFC cards, Most of the events I have been to have been strikeforce(it helps that they have events in Florida). I liked how they somehow managed to put together compelling cards using UFC cast-offs. Maybe since all the fighters were trying to get into the UFC they were giving that extra mile.

Also from reading this comment section, I am glad that I am not alone in my feelings. This page should be printed and put into Dana's inbox.

@Gist - I think that is actually a really great idea, and will try to see if we can make it happen. As for the fight of the week, you can just submit anything to tips@cagepotato.com. Thanks for the suggestion man!

I've got an idea to bring in more traffic to Cagepotato's website. Does everyone see that link at the top of the site to the article about the 50 worst fighters in UFC history? Now, take all of your ranking articles and put them next to it. (Such as, the blank last legal stomp/headbutt/no glove fights or the 7 types you meet in every MMA gym) I frequently am talking to someone about these articles I read on this website, but I have to type it into google and hope I find a link to it because CP doesn't have them in an easy-to-find list of links. And tell us how to submit fights for fight of the week already!

as soon at the three prong stance was deemed a legitimate maneuver i stopped taking it seriously (im looking at you karma). vitor was a few inches to bringing me back on board, but alas....

the ufc should send half of their fighters to SF and make them fight their way into a small pool of UFC fighters who can actually be on PPV or headline anything relevant. relegate the shitty boring ones back to SF. you can still have a bazillon events but fewer actual UFC PPV cards that they can stack.

oh and kill greg jackson. make it a slow and painful wrestle fuck to the split decision death, then name segal the head trainer of jackson mma.

This article, and mostly the comments section, makes me sad. I'm sad that so many people have lost interest in the sport purely because of shitty over saturated cards. I think you people undervalue the fast forward button. But honestly though, I'm often more jazzed for the next strikeforce card than a ufc card in general. I suppose a part of my continued enjoyment of the sport is more like it's never been much of an event for me. Me and the wife watch something with dinner every night. Tonight might be Castle, or Boardwalk Empire. The next night might be a UFC DVR'd. Maybe too much expectation is what's hurting the sport for you guys.

my interest level with the sport has always fluctuated depending on what's happening in the sport. there are kind of gusts and lulls of exciting and dull periods in all sports. i get more excited about football and basketball when teams i like are winning or in the playoffs, or when they make interesting roster moves or something. and other times i lose interest when those things are not happening. mma is the same way, it's still my favorite sport, but it just has its better/worse moments.

I care. I just care a bit less than I did a year or two ago. I still visit Cagepotato 2-3 times a day though. I may not read every single article anymore but I read a lot of them. Things aren't black and white. There are peaks and valleys. This is just a valley.

Can't speak for anyone else but no...

In the old days I used to go the local tittie-bar every time there was a UFC card. We're talking like 3 4 years ago. The main events were always cool like the Rich Franklin Anderson silva matches... it was right around the time Hendo and Rampage came to the UFC from pride and fought for titles.. Exciting things were happening then other than in heavyweight.

Yeah. now there are too many cards and not enough stars and it really doesn't feel like any of it means a damned thing.

So sign me up. I don't care too. I'm just waiting for more wisdom from WarMachine (seriously, we need to get that guy into talk radio) I could listen for hours every day to him just saying whatever bizarre shit comes into his head)

And yeah danga, you suck.

I do not buy every UFC fight like I used to. Is it due to putting on too many events or is it due to it is no longer something new and interesting that we never seen before? Probably a little from column A and a little from column B. I am like most of the current fans for the UFC. I followed the sport in the early days and then really got hooked on the first Stephan vs Forrest fight. After that fight I either ordered the fight or went to someones house or bar with a bunch of friends and watched every single event. At that point and time it felt like a privilege to watch the fight and I cleared my calender to make sure I saw the event. If I missed one I was pretty pissed. I no longer feel that way, if I miss a fight I check web sites like this to see what happened. I think it also has to do with the guys that made us hardcore fans no longer being here and the fighters that we want to see fight seem to only fight once or twice a year. I think the UFC is too focused on expansion when they should be concentrated on keeping the current fans entertained. If you keep providing a good product it will continue to sell itself. My personal observation is that the UFC is not gaining enough casual UFC fans to offset the loss of the hardcore fans. Of course Dana White is going to provide data to state otherwise. But the fact that he is even addressing it might validate the claim. I remember getting pumped up when there was two UFC fights in one month. Now we get 4 events in 7 weeks so the mentality is I can miss this one but that is not a big deal because next week there will be another one and if I miss that one I can watch the one a couple of weeks later and I can get caught up on what happened on those other cards through the web.

Open a new tab and Youtube the song "Mad World", then read the entire section again. It's fucking hilarious. Holy shit...

i still watch all the fights...what has waned is my interest in Cage Potato....i used to check it out and use my snarky unpolitically correct humor to illicit laughs and hateraid...but now......eh is about all i can say... i mean i would at least check it once a day if there was something we could all laugh about....like that one time you aired arriany's choweder flower a day early and dana told you he was going to fuck you worse than you ever been fucked before...i mean that shit was comedy gold.....now.....not so much....i blame it all on you fucks getting rid of the edit button

I feel like the UFC is not investing in promoting up and coming fighters like they used to. It seems like they fight a certain stable of fighters and it feels a touch formulaic. For example, I predict the following happens over the next year @170lb

Fight 1: GSP vs Condit
Fight 2: Nick Diaz vs winner of fight 1
Fight 3: Winner of fight 2 vs winner of fight 1

so to me, we are basically watching the same fight over and over until New years 2014. When is J Hendricks going to get a crack at the belt? How about any of the others chasing him?

I like watching fighters develop and new challengers emerge, I hope the promotion gets back to that a little more.

I agree with you BG. I watch most to all of the fights, but it doesn't seem as exciting as it used to be (for me anyway). I guess I'm just burned out too.

Also...Xarm. I mean, with their trucker lookin' fatbodies and their handgrips for armwrestling, along with the skill and chess-like mindset to compete in such a sport. How is MMA supposed to deal with that trifecta of awsomness.

Nothing gold stays Ponyboy.

Also, you haven't even broken in 135lb.. we weren't ready a 125lb division.. and this is coming from someone that wrestled at 125lb.. it's not just that they are small, it's that it's two entirely new batches of fighters I'm not familiar with. That, in combination with fresh batches of TUF scrubs, are making fight cards full of unfamiliar faces.

I just don't understand how ufc can swallow every other organization, take all the best fighters in the world that used to be shared between pride, strikeforce, elite xc, dream etc. and then still put on a fight card with ONE fight I give a shit about seeing... This whole time I was all for the ufc being the one stop shop for mma, but now I see why everyone else wanted strong competition instead of all the fighters under 1 roof. Because you end up with Antonio Silva against some guy named Travis for a main event...

First off congrats Ben on becoming a dad. You might have mentioned that in a previous post but that's the first time it registered.
I don't think that this year has been that much worse than previous years; the problem is that we are becoming blasé about it. When I first started watching MMA it was a challenge to get to see the fights that you wanted. The extra effort made getting to see these made the viewing mean more. Now we are all getting a bit spoilt.
I used to frequently watch two guys I had never heard of before compete (in footage so grainy you'd think all that compulsive masturbation as a kid had finally caught up on you) because I loved the sport. Now there are times when I can't even bother firing up the interweb to see some of the facebook fights, and these are meant to be guys that at least have some pro fights under their belts and is presented in HD, or near to it.
Granted, the focus of a lot of the fights in the last couple of year has shifted a little bit more towards wrestling than was previously the case and that may have taken away some of the more instant gratification that was evident in the earlier years.
You don't have to believe in Evolution, Evolution still believes in you.
I hope that we/I have changed with the sport and have/are gaining more and more respect for the more subtle moves that previously were jeered because it meant the fighters didn't "JUST BLEED" anymore.

This sport hasn't been the same since $kala left.

I've been a big fan of UFC and mma in general for over 10 years and the only "fights" I give two shits about nowadays include: Junior Dos Santos, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, and GSP. In other words, The Championship fights from Heavyweight to Welterweight. Any other fight does not warrant my 15 minutes tops...let alone 25 minute NON CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHTS. I mean c'mon! Travis Browne vs Big Foot Silva is considered a main event for 25 minutes? Umm...who the fuck are you Travis? And how did you get a main event slot???

Don't assume an article wasn't well received just because it didn't get many comments guys. I think just the ones that are controversial in some way get a shit-ton of comments. Speaking only for myself here, but I almost always read all of the articles. I just don't always have a comment about them that bears sharing.

I blame TUF and the whole stuck-in-the-early-2000s, Affliction-wearing, horribly-tatted-up, douchebag, nu-metal "culture" that has represented MMA fighters for way too long.

I can only pay attention to so many white-trash retards before I don't give a shit anymore.

They've also ruined pickup trucks, too. Assholes.

Another problem is the that the majority off mma fan's are casual fan's watching to see someone get knocked out. Fighter's these day's seem like they are missing a key component. HEART! It has become excruciatingly boring to watch these guy's fight for a W when most casual fan's could care less who win's or loses as long as they put on an amazing show which has not happened in a very long time. Most of the fighter's are irrelevant now with a few exception's and it has basically turned into a high school wrestling match out there. But on a good note, it is a good way to induce sleep if you are having problems falling asleep!

I'm a long time cage potato reader (I've just been too lazy to sign up) and yeah I 100% agree with this article; even though it was very negative. Market saturation has really been slowly killing my will to watch MMA... I consider myself a pretty hardcore fan but with all these FX/Fuel TV shows every other week I'm finding it very hard to stay interested in every card. I mean look at this card coming up tomorrow... none of those fights should even be a CO-MAIN event on an older, more stacked, UFC card. I personally did not mind paying the 50 bucks and waiting a full month or two for 1 night of epic fully stacked cards... It's not that I don't enjoy or follow the prelims or the other fights on the main card, I just always buy the card MAINLY to see my favorite fighters fight.

*takes another swig, throws hands in the air & screams*
"FUCK IT ALL!"

MMA is just boring all together now. It's past it's prime and has nowhere to go but down. You can all put your affliction and tapout shirts in the back of your closets because they won't be getting much wear anymore. Even with all the marketing mma has, people are just bored to death of watching men rool around humping each other for 3 rounds. I think it's safe to say boxing won the war. MMA is done!

I think the biggest thing is how many events there are. Used to be about 12 a year if that. Now there can be four a month. Less build-up/excitement/anticipation.

I've been watching MMA since 2004 and finally burned out on it in 2011. My interest in MMA has been on the decline. If you look at the PPV numbers for the UFC it spells the same for many other fans.

2009 - 8,895,000 buys
2010 - 9,270,000 buys
2011 - 6,750,000 buys
2012 - 4,300,000 buys

I know the UFC has purchased Strikeforce and airs those fights. I know they have a deal with FOX and FX which puts some cards on free TV. However, I cannot shake the feeling that the UFC and MMA in general has peaked and is now on the decline.

I think you should quit cage potato, eat double cheeseburgers all day and learn to hate your wife and kid.wors't negative bullshit article ever. rough year? ya. so let's just whine about it in a "i give up on the sport way". shut the fock up cry baby! who even wrote this piece of shit article????

I stopped caring when the Natural Born Kill.. When the Natural Born K-K-.. When Condit "fought" Diaz and backpedaled more than Jon Jones backpedals from black women. A guaranteed barnburner turned into a game of hide and seek, just like that. I was in Vegas for that fight, too.

If I could change one thing it would be eliminating TUF. I just get the feeling the reason I'm thinking "who the fuck are these assholes..." every fight card is because i haven't watched TUF since Kendall Grove won the contract.

The clue is on the main events. I got chills for Lesnar vs Carwin and Lesnar vs Cain, not because I thought Lesnar was any good, just because anything could happen, and I really wanted Lesnar out. I got chills on Jones vs Belfort, I thought Belfort had a chance, he came out of nowhere, he was not set in line, he had some sort of chance, and the adrenaline of seeing Jones lose? That makes you feel it. I didn't care about GSP vs Jake Shields, you can hype a fight all you want, we are not dumb. Every event provides some good fights and good fun, but are those chills in the main events from two guys we REALLY wanna watch fight that makes us impatient to give up the money or to let our anxiousness flow. Faber vs Barao? Wanderlei vs Franklin? Dos Santos vs Mir? C'mon, fuck it. You have to keep that anxiousness in a constant level, you can't put Silva vs Sonnen then Wanderlei vs Franklin, who gives a shit. And being a long time with that feeling makes you less interested and makes you feel and think that you are not interested in the upcoming events, when the truth is that past events haven't filled you with that emotion you'll probably receive in future events you are really looking forward to.

I feel it too - Here is why - http://www.cagepotato.com/five-things-the-ufc-needs-to-fix-if-they-want-to-continue-their-upward-trajectory/

And Danga sucks ass.

@BHOP - If you're asking why we don't do interviews and pieces with lesser/up and coming fighters, look no further than your fellow readers. The sad fact is, whenever we do one of those pieces (my Danny Castillo interview for example), they receive about 1/10th the hits any piece mentioning Jon Jones, Chael Sonnen, Brock Lesnar, or the lovely Carmen Valentina would. It's supply and demand 101, really.

Everyone else is debating flyweights, oversaturation, Old Dad, New Dad, New Old Dad, Fuel TV...and I'm just sitting here masturbating.

1. Anderson Silva( and some others) are NOT fighting the best fighters in the world, rather hanging on to the belt as long as possible.
2. Over-saturation.
3. Sorry, but these flyweights and shit ARE boring, I dont care what anyone says. That's fine if they fight, but we gotta keep these things less frequently and definitely not co main event (I fucking hate u Bisping but you got that one). Ruined all the mojo of every single person that was outside with the keg watching the fights. Just not fun for casual viewers. That's a big market share, I dont care what anyone says.
4. We need to enlist a rule where either a champ fights injured or loses the belt, period. Don't overtrain, I know injuries happen, but this has become a problem.
5. We need GSP, Overeem, and even Nick Diaz.
6. Tournaments, and yes a ranking system.

"Expectation is the root of all heartache" -Billy Shakespeare
"This vile exhibition hath no shame! A shitty fight is thy name!" -Boomer Shakespeare

I also think there is a problem with a lack of decent contenders to get hyped about.

Heavyweight was exciting when Brock Lesnar was the champ and you had Carwin, Velasquez, and Dos Santos coming up and then the few matches after that. Now I'm just looking forward to Velasquez vs Dos Santos II or Overeem coming back. Other than that I'm not too amped about the Heavyweight division.

Light Heavyweight lacks excitement. Jon Jones is fun to watch, but I don't see any legitimate challengers.

Middleweight has been cleared out by Anderson Silva. I was never too excited about this division in the first place. It was just too see who the next person to get destroyed by Silva was.

Welterweight is actually exciting with Condit, MacDonald, Penn, Diaz, and GSP.

Lightweight is the weightclass I care about right now. There are a lot of up-and-comers and now Nate Diaz vs Benson Henderson will be an excellent fight.

Featherweight, I don't really follow as closely except for when Jose Aldo fights (when he isn't injured that is)

Bantamweight and Flyweight - meh. Exciting enough fights, but I never look forward to them.

But I will continue to watch as many UFC events as I possibly can. I have two places that, between the two of them, will show all the UFC events. I never shell out PPV money...probably because I don't have cable.

so in order to get good tickets to a live event you have to buy them months in advance. By the time the card shows up it's nearly completely changed due to injuries or failed drug tests or whatever. And the DW character is getting really old. He's shown he has no real power over the fighters. I said it a long time ago, the more money at stake the worse the sport will be for fans. There's really no competition for the UFC anymore but yet DW can't make fighters fight when he wants or who he wants. He's a joke. And yes there's so many cards they're all watered down. If they even happen anymore.

You guys are the only site to really bitch and moan about not having good stories. Why not sometimes write about up and comers who nobody knows about but have bright futures, or do more interviews with fighters instead of pornstars (wtf were you assholes thinking?). Find out what fighters do for their day jobs other than fighting. For fucks sakes people, every GOOD mma site posts good material everyday but doesn't necessarily revolve around big named fighters, so stop your moaning and groaning. Have some more contests or giveaways, because this site is getting boring really fucken quickly.

Correction: It is also acceptable for a champ to move up in weight to fight a contender (top 5). For one, it's a fight people want to see, and another, it makes at least a little bit of sense in the rankings because it puts the lighter champion in line for a legitmate title shot at the higher weight.

I don't know what the ufc execs expect when they take the two most dominant fighters in the sport who refuse to fight each other and match them up with a "has been" and "never was" from the opposite weight classes they fight in.. how are we supposed to take these events or the sport in general seriously? Anderson(mw champ) vs Bonnar(lhw), and Jones(lhw champ) vs Vitor(mw), I mean seriously? In what dimension does Silva vs Bonnar make any sense? There are only two match ups that should be made for these guys.. a title fight against a contender from their weightclass, or a superfight against another champion. Anything else is a slap in the face to the fans.

Solution: post more nekkid pics of girls who once held a ring card, or at least considered doing it.

There needs to be a clear cut main and co main event for every event, period. Everything else (number of events, ratings, rankings, etc) will fall into place if you can do this. If you have enough BIG NAME fighters to make 30+ main and co main events in a year (30 events 4 fighters = 120 big name fighters involved in 60 fights a year), do it. The problem is, the UFC does not have the firepower to do this and has lost more names than it has built in the last 2-3 years. We saw what happened with UFC 151 which was basically Jones vs Henderson. Look at UFC on FX 5, there is no main event. Browne vs Silva is a Co-main event at best, Silva is coming off 2 first round KO losses.

Most of these cards hqve been pretty stacked initially but the injury curse has crippled the majority of the events. Couple that with upcoming stars who are having to carry a lot of the burden of these injury prone cards rather than adding to the overall awesomeness of the card. This in turn doesn't allow casual fans who are only excited about marquee names discover these fighters in a supporting role as initially intended.

Agreed. The inclusion of the lighter weight classes actually ruined it a bit for me. More fights going to decision and filling up cards with unfamiliar faces. Knowing a fighters career arc makes a win or loss meaningful and exciting.

Also, long periods between seeing a favorite fighter fight due to inability to buy every PPV. Missing a faorite fighters next fight used to be unfathomable. I didn't see Wand v Rich, and would have never missed a Wand fight in the past.

Tournament tyle in the UFC, with every January being the start of a new "season", then every few months semifinal matches to narrow the field until there is one giant championship card every year on New Years Eve, like a Super Card. Also you could have non-title superfights or cathcweight fights during the seaosn to keep the reigning champion fresh from ring rust and get a few paydays while he is waiting for his opponent in the end of the year Super Card. You could even have two Super Cards, one in the winter and one in the summer, HV, MW, and FL in the summer, LHV, WW, and LW in the winter, schedule each of the semifinal tourneys accordingly. Then we can look back and see the 2012 UFC HV champ was JDS and the 2013 toruney winner is (insert name here), they will fight for the 2013 HV title, etc. basically just something to eliminate the randomn matchmaking, itermin titles, and 3 fight trilogy BS that are the same things that made many UFC fans stop watching boxing in favor of UFC in the first place.

I used to never miss a single fight and would either pay full price to order a ppv or go to a local hooters/sports bar. Now I either watch the live stream while symultaneously playing video games, or wait for the event to end and look up the videos for the 1-2 fights I actually cared about seeing. I blame oversaturation, and TUF outliving it's usefulness by about 10 seasons. I get the feeling the events feel watered down to me because they probably include a handful of TUF guys every time, and being that I haven't watched an episode of tuf in years I have no interest in these guys that won't end up going anywhere anyway and are only there because they ran through a piece of drywall or tore up a cardboard door.

My interest in MMA has waned, and here's why:

1. No order to rankings and fights - Look, I get it. Joe Silva and Dana want interesting match ups. But guess what? People need some sense of order to make sense of MMA or it just becomes a reality based WWF. There needs to be legit rankings so non-title fights have meaning. It gives the guys just out of the top 5 a reason to fight and fans a reason to care that they fight (other than "they fucking finish fights"). There's nothing more annoying than fighters who don't deserve a title shot, getting a title shot, just because. Anderson Silva (don't get me wrong, he's number 1 on my P4P list) has fought a who's who of "why the fuck did he get a title shot?". Develop rankings, make it make sense and stick to it.

2. Market Over Saturation - There's no question the market is over saturated. I consider myself an educated and knowledgeable fan, but I don't give much of a fuck about this weekend's fights. I see Neer is on the card and he always puts on a show, but the rest of them, meh... Reduce the PPV shows to a quarterly cadence with stacked cards. The fans will be pumped (and can afford a PPV every three months) and the fighters will be pumped as well. How much more important does a fight become if you're only fighting once or twice a year (not to mention it will naturally drive up salaries). Which brings me to:

3. Minor Leagues - For those that are really into the sport, there needs to be a legit proving grounds for developing fighters. TUF is the closest we have and I'm not interested in some tatted up, seamen frosted antics. Maybe when I was 13, but not now. I just want to see young, potentially good fighters demonstrate their skills. Every other sport has it in some capacity and UFC needs it to. It's how hard-core fans develop interest and find things to follow when nothing is going on with the major leagues.

4. Clean it up Dana - MMA will never gain widespread, mainstream acceptance until the figure head can formulate a sentence with proper subject/verb agreement that isn't littered with the word "Fuck". When I had kids I managed to eliminate cursing from my vocabulary when I'm around the tykes. Dana, do the same. Treat the press like tykes, eliminate the lazy words from your vocab and act like an adult. It'll fatten up your wallet, trust me on this.

I remember this being an old CagePotato article way back in the day. Maybe it was Old Dad who said it, I can't recall. But being an MMA fan is hard because there is no Off-Season. With other sports you have a period where that sport takes a break, then everyone gets pumped when the new season starts up. The logical comparison is to point to boxing, but who gets excited about boxing outside of following a handful of fighters?



Another important distinction, that we've seen become more obvious in recent events, is that the MMA Fighter is being endangered by the MMA Athlete. Unfortunately the MMA Fighter is the reason we started watching this crazy thing and came to love it. The MMA Athlete, while able to compete and usually beat the MMA Fighter because Ability > Heart, usually does so without all the pizzaz and razzle dazzle. This becomes more and more obvious the higher up the food chain we get, which is why Undercard and Small Promotion fights have somehow kept me way more interested than main events.

I care. Of course I care. It's been a slow time for news because the UFC has been pretty much cursed this year. This has not really affected my interest because I also watch Bellator, Titan FC, Legacy etc. Everything in life is cyclical. I fully expect next year to be on the upswing.
That and I also blame that Danga fucker.

?

On a more serious note, I think the UFC has detected this too via their crappy PPV draws, which may be underlying their moves into foreign markets like ... India.

Totally agree, BG. It's gone from the one sport I'd dvr and seek out to read about to... eh. All the drama with the personal lives, too much non-fight related news, no legitimacy to the rankings or title shots because of injuries and ever changing cards. I've been sad to see my one interest decline so quickly in an 18 month span, but hey... whatever.

NFL Blog? How about celeb gossip or really cute baby animals. You know like TMZ + Buzzfeed.

Needs more GSP, The Reem, JDS, etc.. The lack of having the classy good guys fighting against credible challengers is strangling the UFC. All we are offered is oversized and unbeatable champions against suicidally one sided match-up's.
Wow Anderson Silva gets to fight Sonnen and Bonnar this year? whooop-di-fucking-doooo, just televise them playing Monopoly together instead to make it worth watching.

So it's settled? On Monday, CagePotato becomes an NFL blog?

Also note: All your reasons were valid, but you should also include the death of Pride, IMO.

In all seriousness, I get the burn out. I don't even watch the free fights, just check in after or watch live blogs. I don't watch any other sporting events except WWE (I keed) because everything seems so faceless. I miss having to hunt down PPVs in the video store, having a favorite fighter, getting excited for upcoming fights. It's getting a little too big for my tastes (hipster!).

That being said, I still check CP everyday, over every other MMA site, because you make it more entertaining for me... Except for Danga.

I agree with everyone else, I'm a bit bored of this shit. Maybe that's because I can no longer afford to drop $60 a month on PPVs (and I don't even have cable any more), or because I have no cool friends to watch fights stuff with, but either way, I'm like Kimbo, I really have no clue what I'm supposed to be looking forward to. But, apparently, you fuckers who actually can watch this shit aren't. I figured it was just me getting old.

I used to watch as many events as possible: UFC, PRIDE, Bellator, Strikeforce, DREAM, Sengoku, MFC, Elite XC, IFL, Titan, Shark, KOTC, Rings, ... Everything I could get my eyes on and now there's just too much programmming to keep up with the smaller promotions. I still get super excited for fights, but more and more only UFC fights. There's only a handful of fighters outside of the UFC that I'll watch especially since the fall of Japanese MMA. Fortunately AXS TV still carries most of those fights, I just fast forward through most of them.

Totally agree! Not a lot of big fights. There's no bad ass American champions like Liddell or couture. We need a fun fighter who knocks people out

I don't care anymore. I never watch fights anymore. I only read the play by plays and sometimes I just skim those. I check MMA news every few days when I used to check every hour. I don't even know a single fight that is coming up and I used to know the entire card. I can't even be arsed to rag on Danga's lousy grammar mistakes anymore (and I have seen plenty. No you are not getting better, Danga)

Unbeatable champs seem like an important part of this equation. The only strap we've seen change hands all year was Bendo over Edgar, and that was all the way back in February. Not coincidentally, that is the only time all year I have shelled out for PPV.

I'm not sure we've exhausted every Top 10 list just yet, but I feel ya. MMA had its moments this year (Jones-Evans, Sonnen-Silva) but not as many as years gone by. They say once you become addicted to something, it takes more and more to get that same high. Injury curse or not, 2012 was sort of apocalyptic (Guida getting robbed against Maynard & UFC 151). Here's hoping 2013 is a much better year for MMA fans. There is hope yet (Bellator in HD on Spike, WSOF, and *crosses fingers* the return of GSP, The Reem, and a major crossover star.)

I blame it all on that Danga fucker.

Please tel me youre not leaving.

I know the feeling, I feel my interest in MMA waning as well, I think the sport is over-exposed. Maybe I am just getting older and more mature but the "male soap opera" aspect of beefs and beef-squashing is not that interesting anymore. Still the last UFC on fuel was awesome.

@FightZen: I did, and yes. You start tomorrow. Good luck.

Who wrote this and can I have his job?