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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC/Reebok fighter uniforms were revealed on Tuesday morning, and though "customization" has been a theme thrown out by both entities since the partnership was announced, there was an awful lot of sameness to the look.
An awkward 30-minute presentation brought out fighters from several different countries to showcase the "country specific" nature of the color scheme, with all UFC Champions save Jose Aldo showcasing the black and gold scheme for their uniforms.
Where some customization comes into play will be with the specifics of the equipment, with different types of shorts really serving as the differences for the fighter. However, as far as the fight week shirts themselves, they're all a variation on the same theme.
Fans can already purchase items in the new "Fight Shop" on Reebok's website, but unfortunately there's been some odd choices made, not to mention some unintentional hilarity in some of the typos presented.
Penick's Analysis: The entire presentation was extremely awkward, and the end result is not all that encouraging. Given how one of the selling points is that the fighters will be getting a cut of the shirt revenue, the fact that these are running upwards of $95 per shirt without the names some of them are known by is ridiculous. On top of that, when there's not a ton of difference between the designs, I'm not sure how many UFC fans are actually going to be plopping down money for them in the first place for anyone outside of the most well known names. There are also fighters who are on the roster who haven't been included on the site yet already commenting on that (Jim Alers for one), and I don't think - given everything else we already know about the pay for these athletes - that it's going to be accepted as well as the UFC is hoping.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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