Injury troubles are evidently not exclusive to the UFC.
Strikeforce canceled its card Saturday night after lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez pulled out of his fight with Pat Healy due to a separated shoulder. When Melendez said he could not fight, Showtime decided not to air the card and Strikeforce nixed it altogether. It didn’t help that it was going up against a primetime tape-delay airing of UFC on Fuel TV.
Strikeforce’s next card, on Nov. 3, currently doesn’t have a main event either after Frank Mir, who was set to fight Daniel Cormier, withdrew with an injury.
This comes after seven straight UFC events have had their main event changed because of a fighter getting hurt. UFC 151was canceled after Dan Henderson could not fight in the headlining bout with Jon Jones because of a partially torn MCL. Jones turned down Chael Sonnen as an opponent and the company decided to scrap the entire card since it had no main event.
This is officially an epidemic with two full shows now being canceled in the span of a month.
What’s the solution? Are there too many events? Are guys training too hard?
UFC president Dana White believes the latter. He also attributes the recent string as terrible luck. Most critics feel like the UFC, especially, is overextending itself with too many shows from pay-per-views to Fox to FX to Fuel TV.
PPV buy rates have leveled off and TV ratings are dwindling. Is the UFC oversaturated?
I don’t think it is. This is just a rough patch in the company and sport’s development. Brock Lesnar, the UFC’s largest draw, retired in December. Georges St. Pierre, the second largest headliner, has been on the shelf with injuries for more than a year and a half.
The only way to build new stars is through exposure. The only way to support the amount of fighters on the roster is to keep this amount of shows.
There are going to be times when the only people watching a particular show are MMA diehards – the people who watch every event. And there are going to be other times, when St. Pierre or Jon Jones fights, that the casual fan tunes in. Toss female phenom Ronda Rousey of Strikeforce into that group, too.
When the Cubs are playing the Brewers on “Sunday Night Baseball,” ESPN doesn’t get a huge ratings number. That doesn’t mean baseball’s popularity is waning. ESPN also does a good job selecting more attractive teams. It also doesn’t have to deal with the Yankees pulling out of a game with the Red Sox because of a knee injury.
The UFC – and MMA— might not be growing at the rapid rate it once was. But there is still growth. Let’s keep in mind that the UFC in its current incarnation is about 12 years old. It’s basically still in the breastfeeding stage compared to every mainstream sport.
The last few months of injuries killing shows is just the current problem in MMA. Kind of like the replacement referees are the chic issue in the NFL. In the winter, there will be something else and in the spring we’ll be talking about MMA fighters not getting paid enough again.
The sky, though gray right now, is not falling.