Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: UFC on Fox 1 thoughts and suggestions for second network event in January
Nov 16, 2011 - 8:45:04 AM HYDEN BLOG: UFC on Fox 1 thoughts and suggestions for second network event in January

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

This past Saturday Junior dos Santos knocked out Cain Velasquez to win the UFC Heavyweight Title. If you had listened to the commentary of Joe Rogan and used that as your only source of information, you would have been blown away by this result. In the pre-fight talk between Rogan and Mike Goldberg, Rogan made several uninformed statements. He repeated these as Bruce Buffer made his spastic fighter introductions.

Rogan said that Velasquez was "a perfect fighter" and had "no weaknesses". That's wrong on a few levels. First, no fighter is perfect and without at least one weakness. Not even Anderson Silva or Georges St-Pierre are without weakness. Second, Velasquez is a brown belt in Guerilla Jiu-Jitsu. That kind of makes me think that a black belt might have an advantage over him on the ground, doesn't that count as a weakness?

This type of hyperbole is common among announcers, but that doesn't make it right. It especially made Rogan look bad when Velasquez got knocked out out in a little over a minute. That was when Rogan decided to start talking up dos Santos, something he had done very little of up to that point.

This is not meant to denigrate Velasquez, he has no control over what an announcer says about him. I think Velasquez is a good fighter. I don't think he's great just yet, though he does have the potential to be great someday. It's important to keep in mind that Velasquez has only had 10 fights and is only 29 years old. He still has a handful of peak years left before him to improve and solidify his game.

Another dumb thing Rogan said was when he talked up dos Santos as being one-dimensional and totally reliant on his boxing. Rogan said Dos Santos is a throwback to a time when guys were fantastic at one thing rather than really good at several. I find that odd because dos Santos is a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I do believe that is the same rank Velasquez is in Guerilla Jiu-Jitsu. Why does that contribute to Velasquez having "no weaknesses" while it means Dos Santos is "one-dimensional"?

Moving on from my Rogan complaints, the fight played out basically the way I thought it would. I didn't think it would last long and I figured it'd end with a knockout. I still feel they should have shown another fight, especially given how quickly the fight they did show ended. Dana White going off on those who feel the UFC dropped the ball for doing the show they way they did was totally uncalled for. One thing Dana has to learn real fast is that big-name sports figures don't talk that way, certainly not those in positions of power. I understand that this is what makes Dana White who he is, but the UFC isn't the NFL. They don't have the brand awareness to be telling fans to shut up.

I appreciate Dana's honesty and candor, but corporate sponsors and on-the-fence fans may not. When you're the public face of a company, you have to conduct yourself a certain way.

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Mike Goldberg said that UFC on FOX 2 will be 2.5 hours. I know you don't want to have too much talking-head stuff, but they need to showcase the current UFC champions in some way. The easiest way would be to create a graphic showing the current champion, along with his record and other pertinent information, and also his upcoming opponent. You have to show a picture to give people a face to go with the name. If you do that with all seven current champions, that will go a long way towards upping the profile of each champion.

The best way to do this to me would to take 60 seconds per fighter, show the picture graphic with win/loss, etc. for about 10 seconds, then show 50 seconds of highlights from the Champion's career. You do that for all seven fighters and you've just made bigger names for your Champions. It only takes seven minutes to do that, and you don't even have to do this all at once. You can spread out the fighter profiles over the course of the show.

Also, a quick way to make the main events stand out is to have other UFC fighters give their predictions on who will win. You can make this a 1-2 minute long piece, just showing several other fighters giving their take on what will happen. You could limit it to the current UFC Champions if you want, that would give them a higher profile and make them seem even more important. You could open it up to all UFC fighters, though, but this is another little idea that will help.

A guest commentator for the main event could be another good on their part. You start getting into "iffy" territory there, though, but if it works, it works really well.

There's plenty of good, little ideas the UFC could implement in their plans going forward. Most of these ideas could, and should, be used for every show they do, including pay-per-views. However, it's imperative that they use these kinds of ideas for their FOX shows. They obviously want to put on a good show and draw fans, but they also have to promote their bread-and-butter pay-per-view shows. I think they can do both, and make it so that everybody wins.


Comments and suggestions can be e-mailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com