2017 is going to be a really interesting year for the UFC, its fans, and most importantly the new owners. WME-IMG shelled out $4 billion for the world leader in MMA, and they now have a heavy debt to pay back. Unfortunately, there are many things that may prevent the company from having a good year in 2017.
Despite Dana promising UFC employees that nothing would change following the new owners taking over, almost everything has. Employees have been laid off all across the company. Even Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes, who were mainly receiving “no-show” jobs, were let go. This doesn’t really change anything for them, other than they no longer get paid however.
WME-IMG is showing they aren’t afraid to make drastic changes. This could turn out fine, but it might also be the beginning of the UFC’s downfall.
Here are six reasons why the UFC will begin to collapse in 2017…
6. Too Many Interim Champions
We have already seen that the new UFC owners want a title fight on every PPV, no matter if a division’s true champion is involved or not. WME-IMG seems completely unfazed by the backlash from fans to this trend.
At UFC 206, hardly anyone bought the idea that Max Holloway vs Anthony Pettis was for a championship. Nothing against either of those guys, one who was a legitimate champion at 155lbs, and another who has the potential to be at 145lbs. Between Conor, Aldo, and even Frankie Edgar, nobody thought these were the top two in the division. Conor had just vacated the title, and Jose Aldo had the interim tag taken off his belt. Hardly enough time had passed since Aldo’s fight at UFC 200 for a new interim belt to be created.
Then a women’s featherweight championship was created and neither of the two fighters scheduled for the bout are the consensus #1 in the weight class. Cris Cyborg is clearly the dominant woman fighter at 145lbs, so what are Holm and Germaine de Randamie actually fighting for?
Having title fights on PPVs is important, but you cannot devalue the worth of a championship by handing out title belts so haphazardly.
I don’t agree I think 2017 is wen we will see what they plan for the future an the way the ufc is putting their events in as many different countries as they are I can see the idea of maybe agreeing with u on the too many different champs an as a way of countering that I see them after establishing all the top fighters from all the globes corners an having a once yearly super tournament where whicheva country chosen to hold it an all the best come together to compete against the best of each other so there will be the one true champion of his weight division, atm they seem to be going around signing a range of different fighters but in fairness they all seem to be the top few guys/ladies from each fighters region
The Ali Act would be AMAZING! But the UFC will be piiiiiiiissed, it will mess them up, they never really worked with merits, if the Ali act had been around for a while, McGregor wouldn’t have gotten a title fight, Ronda would never have held a belt, Sonnen would never get big fights…
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