The Time Might Truly, Actually, Really Be Now.

Wow. Wasn’t that great? Wasn’t it predictable? Junior Dos Santos beating Stipe Miocic was not thrilling but order has been restored and that is reassuring. Or not. Velasquez vs. Dos Santos IV is a barn-burner if your idea of of $55 is watching a Brazilian man bleed. Remember Arlovski vs. Sylvia IV? You didn’t know that happened? Check your Wikipedia, bro. But who cares?! We’re spoiled and that is a fantastic and luxurious attitude that we should hug it until the fans boo us. It kinda makes you think…….

The entire MMA world, from the fighters to the media to the fans to the window to wall, has been in a pissant mood for the last two years. Profits have dropped 40% as cynicism has soared to record highs. Everyone is hurt, nothing goes as planned, and all attempts at hype have seemed silly and desperate. 
 
Well, Merry Christmas, that is all bullshit now. For or better or worse, MMA is less about the antics and efforts of the major promotions and more about the ability to get the right fighters in the cage at the right time. The matchups have to be entertaining (Tito/Bonnar), interesting (Silva/Diaz), or relevant (JDS/Miocic) and less of an accident (Jones/Belfort) or lack of options (Dillashaw/Soto). If all of the fighters on a roster are healthy and active then the matchups and marketing become something that a monkey can do before it fastballs some feces in your direction. It’s basically nature. Fighters are like post-pubescent girls, if you lock them in an Octagon, they’ll eventually get on the same cycle. 
 
There are many terrible movie plots and real suicide parties that rely on planets aligning with each other and I think that’s exactly what’s happening in our tiny and badass little world of MMA. Other objects that create significant gravitational force are the heavyweights in the UFC. Did you know that 9 of the top 15 heavyweights in the UFC are fighting within a 60 day period? Can you count and use the internet? Would you bother if you could? In a few months they’re all going to fight each other again but in zany combinations of what we have recently seen. This is happening with all of your favorite weight classes. Boys AND girls. There’s actually a backlog of legitimate contenders. Now fighters won’t be able to talk their way into championship bouts. They’ll have to fight Dark Knight Joker Pool Cue style simply to be in the conversation. 
 
Another benefit of predictable and awesome fight cards is that the UFC can afford to take some fun risks like it is doing with CM Punk. Six months ago, the CM Punk announcement would have seemed ridiculous and almost like an admission of total defeat, but now it makes sense to attract new, impressionable eyeballs to the sport (he’s already generating a TON [citation needed] of clicks and views) because, regardless of Mr. Punk’s level of future success or failure, the UFC has some awesome fights to offer and you have to scroll out to March to find something that you’re not interested in watching. That’s not taking into account that Donald Cerrone will fight four times in that period.
 
Stacked cards also let less-stacked cards pass with zero scrutiny and are accccctually kinda nice. I probably wouldn’t pay to watch next week’s fights with Machida vs. Dollaway and Barao vs. Gangnon but now I’m excited to have some free fights to distract my adrenal gland from the INSANITY of Jones vs. Cormier. 
 
So, what’s the point of these words? I don’t even know. I lost focus when I heard that not-creepy Itsy-Bitsy Spider song for the 6th time then yelled at some Girl Scouts. Possibly, I thought that now is the time to talk to your friends about MMA because you finally won’t look stupid. Don’t go all, like, fighter merchandise n’ shit but don’t be scared about not wanting to be alone on January 3rd for UFC 182. 
 
Thank you for your time. As a reward, watch some Russians play Red Rover with their fists. It looks voluntary (they have uniforms) and sanctioned so it’s not illegal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Hs5vCFC10

Published on December 14, 2014 at 7:29 pm
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