UFC 86: Rampage vs Forrest...heatless? hypeless? bad bloodless?
I hear people complaining about how the UFC has to build up drama to sell a fight, and how it always seems that every main event the fighters seem to hate each other. Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz seemed to hate each other way more than normal. Those fights did great on PPV and had a lot of hype. When Serra decided to do something stupid like knocking Canada's George St. Pierre out, there seemed to be bad blood with Matt Serra calling GSP a "frenchie" and getting GSP Canadian angry for their rematch. But GSP just ended up telling Serra in the octagon it was for show.
That's when people started complaining about the WWE style hype behind fights and it's stupid to use that to sell a fight. Would they rather have it be a secret that the fighters do like each other, have respect for one another? There is no hate or bad blood between Rampage and Forrest, and people are complaining about why there is a lack of bad blood.
fightlinker.com:
http://fightlinker.com/blog/?p=2569
and you can add sports illustrated:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ben_fowlkes/06/26/jackson....
I am excited for this fight, and if fighters hate each other or not I'm going to watch. I can get pumped up for this fight on my own.
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Comments
REAL bad blood is honestly
REAL bad blood is honestly pretty rare...even sherk said after his match that BJ gave him a call and told him that he was gonna try to pump up the fight as much as possible. whether or not that is totally true, i could care less. it's more for casual fans and for the fighters to make more money in their fights.
both these guys are going to fight 200%....that's all i care about.
Great post Phoenix. I'm
Great post Phoenix. I'm curious to see how this fight does on PPV. It's July 4th weekend and it's a pretty even fight in my mind between two tough competitors. But, as you say, the build-up has been minimal. I don't think the matchup benefited at all from TUF 7 because there was no bad blood that built up.
So, will fans tune in just for the fight? I think so -- I think both guys are stars in the sport and that's enough. I think that when one or both aren't stars or there is a perceived mismatch in talent, that's when you see some of the fake (or real) hype buildups...
i don't think it helped that
i don't think it helped that there was such a big layoff for this fight. casuals are starting to pick up on rampage but he's still no chuck or randy so it would have helped to have had this months ago (yes i know rampage was hurt)
Hmm...well I've got my money
Hmm...well I've got my money on Forrest now, quite literally, even though Jackson is one of my favorite fighters and definitely one of the coolest champions ever in the sport. I've been waiting all year for this fight, so I can't believe that more people aren't pumped to see it. It's pretty lame that Vince McMahon style promoting and feigned animosity between the fighters is what really sells those PPV buys and puts butts in seats...
ESPN.com ran a similar
ESPN.com ran a similar story:
http://sports.espn.go.com/extra/mma/news/story?id=3466495
I agree that shelving two fighters for 10 months to try and build up the fight on Spike did not work. I wish the UFC would stop doing this. I want to see fighters fight. The drama comes along if it's meant to happen. But, to try and manufacture it through reality TV is lame...
i don't see the need for a
i don't see the need for a champion and contender to be coaches...i would still watch. if it's really about coaching fighters and finding talent i'm sure a number of other fighters would do fine on the show.
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