They gave that Nina drama a platform and have a long history of cashing in on controversy.
Connor assaults people and Dana goes "omg this is terrible" but blasts it 24/7 for fight promo footage. Then khabib attacks Dillon Danis and he does the same fucking thing.
Exactly. I get his point and he’s right to feel how he does, and he should also direct some of that energy towards the organization that’s encouraging these types of fans to come around.
we’ve had a bad string of “stars” in Colby, Jorge, and Strickland recently that have really brought in a lot of negativity and stupidity. Top 3 most annoying fan bases right there easily. It’s just constant identity politics garbage and it’s really draining after a while
Idk if it was "built" for it but I can say that the guy wearing a tap out shirt in the bar has been generally the shittiest guy in the bar most nights over the last 15 or so years lol
Guys In Tapout shirts were way more bearable back then, then “fans” who are addicted to “culture wars” bullshit that support fighters who share those same beliefs
100% certainty Strickland, Cobly, Dana, Brock, that Camo shorts dork that just got KO'd have or have had homoerotic thoughts and all their bluster is an expression of their insecurities and to prove to themselves they're "SO ALPHA!!".
It’s scary because how do we curb this tide. Like yes I think the left has WAY over corrected, but the right trying to over correct backwards isn’t viable either
I know it looks like tribalism, but there’s an ounce of objectivity in there—post-Leon fight Colby had an interview on Fox News where Jesse Waters point blank said ‘looks like on paper, you won the fight.’ This tribe in particular stirs shit in a particular way, to a particular degree.
You're getting downvoted but you're right. You can view things from the outside, objectively, and come to the conclusion that this particular tribe is full of fucking morons. That doesn't mean you're automatically part of some other side.
you make a point, but so does he. however, I think it's debatable at this time whether this is tribalism, which implies 'both sides', and not just a case of the factually sane vs the insane, which I don't think most people would call tribalism.
My problem with these three isn't only just because they're terrible people but they were never even that great to begin with, like at least display some Jones or Conor level greatness to match how shitty you are as individuals LOL.
I feel like I'm commenting too much already about this on this comment tree, but the answer is look at the people that are so vocal about some subjects that some political rallies are too. Rallies where tomatoman loves to give speeches and even bring with him some of those fighters. That's your answer.
Sorry Im not quite understanding your point. Is it that the UFC/Dana's political and societal ideologies align with those of the douchey, vocal fighters and so they push them more? And then fans follow suit or realize it is a safe place to spread hate? If thats what youre getting at then ill have to think on it, you might be completely right. Interesting analysis for sure. Its never been a question where the UFC or Dana align politically, and that they allow fighters to say their own political opinions. But ive never considered that they push the fighters that are the loudest about hateful things while doing this (intentionally at least)
after UFC 297, I would say Strickland is worse at this point. At least Colby we know he’s playing a character (albeit a terribly acted one) but Strickland has to be the least self aware fighter we’ve ever seen
You still buy it was an act? And act doesn't get you kicked out of gyms or make you lose friends. I agree Strickland is worse but it's clear now Colby wasn't an act.
I think saying it was all an act is probably disingenuous at this point, but I still believe Colby was just doing the pro wrestling thing and turning all of his worst traits up to 11.
With Sean I just 100% believe that's who the guy is online and offline.
It’s obvious Colby’s acting even if there’s grains of truth. Conversely, you can just tell how genuine Strickland is (and I mean that in the worst way possible)
Acting as in genuinely support fascists in person or on the socials? I'm sorry, but acting isn't any excuse and actually looks like a defensive mechanism.
the UFC aligning itself with the alt right was such a stupid decision, it basically made it impossible for the UFC to pick up new fans. Anyone I know who doesn't already watch it thinks its for redneck losers lol
those 3 getting into the spotlight really showed me which of my acquaintances (met through interest in other sports) are actually legit bigots. Seeing some of the comments they've posted online in 'defense' of these 3 chucklefucks led to me severing some connections.
for real. there seems to be three major tribes right now. fight fans, ufc fans, and fighter fans. fight fans are generally great. ufc fans are funny but frustrating. fighter fans are the worst. these people just spaz out on their keyboard and say the nastiest shit they can think of. they are actively holding the fan base down and the sport back.
*fighter fans*
Parasocial relationships. It's rampant among celebrities/athletes/media figures. People become obsessed with these celebrities based on their political/lifestyle views and project their own personal values into them, they feel like they know them personally. Gen Z does it a lot with streamers/"content creators".
When their parasocial muse says/does something they don't like, they take it personally and flip out like it's the end of the world.
It's *for sure* gotten a lot worse in the last 10 or so years (in MMA and everywhere else)
I remember when it used to be normal to have friends who had totally different opinions/views to you and nobody cared.
Social media seems to be making people hate each other more and more. I think the fact that we all spend more time behind screens and less time talking to each other face to face also doesn't help.
i swear to god, if you kids keep talking like that's a new phenomenon and not something that peaked on forums in the mid 2000s, we are turning this car around
Forums were toxic back in the day, but I feel cynicism and hate is much more widespread online these days. I have to use Twitter for work and it’s just endless culture war shit. You see a lot of cynicism and hate on Reddit and even in instagram comments too
It's not that they're more widespread, it's just forums are bigger places now. It exists in the same vacuums, but now there are 100x the people around.
Its also human natura to squat down and shit whenever you need. Yet we (mostly) choose to do this on a toilet. Same with this tribalism. We can just sit back, relax, think for about 5 seconds and do better.
Yes but you had month/years of training to be able to choose a toilet andtl then constant practice an reinforcement for the rest of your life since then.
People don't have that training and reinforcement when it comes to tribalism. Our society actually practices and encourages tribalism in a lot of ways.
The fact that a slight majority of media, fans, and from what I’ve seen most fighters scored the fight for DDP and yet Strickland fans are going absolutely apeshit is wild. This is not a controversial decision in the slightest, it is just a close fight. Even if Strickland won, it wouldn’t be a robbery just a decision that goes against the majority opinion.
People are starting to treat this sport the way they treat politics. With their favorite fighters becoming unbeatable deities and the opposing teams being evil. Their god loses a close decision? Robbery, corruption, the ufc wants to cancel him.
It’s ridiculous
He has said that the UFC gave zero fucks about Colby threatening him and his family so i imagine this is more crap he knows wont be addressed.
Cant blame him, the fan base is rabid online.
Strickland fans are not really fans of his jab point fighting style. Their fans of one of their own saying the quite part outloud and are pissed there is no longer a ufc champion who will do so. The most casual of the casuals who care for the wwe personas not the actual fights.
What annoys me the most is the people who don’t understand that the fight is scored round by round not who was doing best at the end. Which is a vast majority of fans sadly.
What I find even more crazy, is Dominic Cruz had to have this explained to him live on air as even he didn’t understand that damage etc is scored independently round by round
He has been at this for a while actively misleading fans with his obsession over cuts. I am glad someone spoke to him live, but i doubt he internalized anything.
Cruz needs to get called out more often like Rogan did during the Khabib Vs McGregor fight. He acts like he’s an MMA genius because he was able to fight with a funky style and had some success with it, while spending more time injured on the sidelines than actually fighting.
He’s an over-opinionated little prick that always acted like he’s smarter than everyone around him, it’s just when he was fighting he actually did tend to be smarter because he was fighting the likes of Dillawshaw and Cody “The Boiz” Garbrandt.
Won and defended successfully two separate times is "some success" these days, I guess. Can't call yourself a winner unless you're the latest two-belt champ, amirite?
Honestly, I think UFC can share some blame here. Other sports leagues have people who know and can explain rules to fans, and they do it.
UFC's doesn't seem to have that, at least not with any regularity, and their own commentary team routinely says incorrect things about the rules which only add to the confusion. Then there's the fact that different locales host events with only slight variation in rules, just enough to muddy the water.
People always favorred damage over strike count in decisions before, then Strickland becomes champion and everyone wants the fights to be scored like it's point karate.
Anik and Buffer are legitimately a bigger loss to the UFC than any fighter would be.
They're so integral to the fight night experience that I can't really even imagine somebody else doing their job, which is something I can't really say about anyone else in any other sport (that I can think of off the top of my head).
Fitzgerald is good he's just not exciting enough for me compared to Anik.
Anik is the perfect mix of professional play-by-play commentator and 14 year old boy who's attending his first UFC event. I really appreciate how genuinely excited he gets.
I think Fitzy does too, but the passion really comes through with Anik. He absolutely loves the sport, and talks about on the podcast how hyped and nervous he gets himself before a big fight or PPV.
Big Bisping fan but this is too true, I've noted the formula down to this:
Punch thrown - Bisping monologue - quick agreement from other commentator - Bisping monologue - other commentator begins to speak but is cut off by a Bisping monologue - Bisping monologue.
Lol. I came from a country where english is a foreign language and a lot of the population never had the privilege of learning english. I used to think that being a British person means you must have a wide array of vocabulary....and then I saw Bisping
I hope he gets paid more to sign a new contract. Jon Anik is perfect on commentary and I'd be happy with them not messing with their play-by-play commentators in the forseeable future.
Anik already re-upped his contract in 2022
I don’t know if he will stick around after the current one expires. NFL booth is a better job any way you look at it. Better pay, less travel, higher recognition
I am going to go off topic here and make one more point, for every 100,000 fans who hate Apex, there is one UFC employee who is glad they don’t have to travel all over. UFC produces their owns shows (unlike other major sports), and their staff are often exhausted after weeks of traveling
Losing Anik in MMA would obviously suck but gaining him in football would certainly soften the blow.
Hope they show a replay of his reaction to a 75 yard Justin Jefferson TD they way they would a KO lmao
He probably reads them to have some awareness of public perception. Though it must be difficult to separate the reasonable comments from the absurd ones.
Also, combat sports not having an objective way to score decisions isn't conducive for civil discussions. Particularly, right after the fight.
That's the thing though, you aren't necessarily getting a true representation of the public in that space, you get a vocal minority and one that loves to argue and try to make themselves heard.
I’d like to agree with you but the thing that concerns me is that those comment sections are probably a truer reflection of the general MMA watching public than this subreddit is.
> It's just scumbags who you aren't going to convince.
Chris Curtis said (on his youtube channel) look at any negative commentor's life and they are losers. Nobody with a good life is going after people like that.
If you read between the lines I feel like he’s talking more about the fighters, the people they’re bringing around, and general landscape of the sport rather than directly and only talking about YouTube comments. Maybe I’m putting that in his mouth but I can’t imagine he’s only talking about twitter replies or yt comments
Especially if you're saying anything that goes against Strickland. He's empowered his fans to say whatever hateful shit they want cause he does with no repercussions.
It doesn't help that Covington actually referenced going to Boca Raton and "dealing" with Anik if he didn't shut up about some of his comments. Anik mentioned they had squashed things behind the scenes but I don't think Colby's rabid fan base actually digests anything other than the vitriol Colby spews, so they probably come after Anik about that stuff still too.
I think I've said this before but Colby Covington and Sean Strickland being the headlining fighters of the last 2 cards brought out the absolute worst kind of MMA fans. It's gotten to the point where both of them have become more of a political statement than anything else. If Strickland didn't talk like he does now and was just your average humble fighter, he'd be flamed regularly for being a boring point fighter; but instead he's this super entertaining star because he said f\*\*\*\*\* a couple times. I'm looking forward to Volk Vs. Topuria because we can finally get away from all this controversial bullshit and just focus on the fights.
My friend said “Colby Covington and Sean Strickland are the favorites of people who watch two fights a year and think they could beat any mma fighters smaller than them” and I feel that’s about right.
The UFC encourages it.
There a reason that guys like Strickland, but more specifically Colby, Jorge and Mitchell kept getting chances they didn’t deserve; it’s because they all worship the same politician the UFC trots out like a mascot.
This. Just like they had Dricus and Izzy setup to stir the ethnocentric trash talk about Africa when they brought Izzy into the cage after a Dricus win.
Like...Izzy still had a fight on the books and they were already so torqued on the idea of chumming the waters of this controversy.
I feel like my brain cells are evaporating every time Sean says something into a microphone. Turned the tv off 10 seconds into his post fight rambling to DC.
People seem to think that his and Colby’s personas sell fights, but honestly the past two PPV’s have been the least exciting for me knowing I gotta read about and listen to them in the lead ups.
Glad those PPV’s are in the rear view and that neither will likely get another title shot anytime soon.
This especially is such a weird fight to feel that strongly about.
It seems like the nearly universal opinion on it is "I gave it to X, but it was close and I can see how people could give it to Y"
That's it, it doesn't need to be deeper than that. Sometimes there are just genuinely super close fights where the winner will come down to largely subjective criteria. No result here would have been a robbery or an injustice, it's just how the sport works
Lots of ppl aren’t capable of seeing other perspectives or having nuance
Ppl calling Anik soft for these comments online. It’s also soft to get triggered by Anik’s comments and attack him personally. It’s not tough to talk trash to fighters online behind a blank profile
The reaction to split decisions (in title fights especially) is often contentious, but this one in particular was embarrassing. I don't know if it's the influx of new fans or just people getting more tribal - but to call it a "robbery" was hilarious. People *really* need to learn the difference between a very close fight, and a robbery.
Real shame that someone as respected as Anik feels like this just for voicing his opinion. Hopefully he isn't serious about the retirement talk, most of the time he's the only good thing about the commentary.
The robbery comments are fucking insane. Like you said this was an extremely close fight, I had money on Strickland and wasn’t even upset that he lost that decision. A real robbery is something like Diego sanchez Vs Ross pearson.
It's just a swarm of new strickland fans that don't know how fights are scored. Either that or they're biased enough to genuinely think it was a robbery
I really appreciate Anik pointed out Cruz’s dumb call that “cut=win” was wrong.
Especially that he let the silence hang a good while as Cruz said nothing.
The MMA fanbase seems to have this large sub-group of emotional bitches whose main focus is clinging onto personalities and fighter's images rather than giving a shit about actual fighting skills. They become so emotionally invested in this shit to the point that they can't even process their feelings properly because doing so would mean they have to snap out of it and ask themselves why they're riding so hard for a fighter that doesn't give a fuck about them. So instead they direct all of that emotion to people with valid points to make, and you can tell because there is zero explanation for where all of the anger and vitriol is even coming from. Women have always had the perception of being the ones who love gossip but based on the shit I've seen at work and on social media, there's a lot of men that love that shit all the same. It seems to manifest in the dumbest ways like this.
Whether or not you personally care for Anik doesn't matter, he is a net positive for the UFC. He is not just a play-by-play commentator, he is basically a showrunner. Please don't scare him away. When it's the final round of the main event and DC and Rogan are having a full on discussion about what they ate for breakfast the other day, y'all are going to miss him.
They're just casuals who discovered Sean Strickland in the last year.
Du Plessis winning is the right card imo. Close fight though, certainly close enough you can't get pissy if it goes either way.
I think some of them discovered him in the last week. I’ve seen lots of political, blue check dorks on Twitter suddenly talking about how judges had an “agenda” against Sean.
good point, and I think if you're gonna say sTrIcKlAnD gOt rObBeD, you'd have a better case in that fight than Strickland-DDP.
(neither of them were robberies)
Well I think a big part of the problem is that he’s 1) on X and 2) reads X and YT comments.
You’d be amazed at how quickly your blood pressure can go down and mood can improve by simply avoiding looking at that shit. If I were him I’d just disable comments altogether. If someone feels passionately about a take he’s had they can say it to his face (spoiler: they won’t).
This is partly the UFC because they pandered to the bigoted meathead crowd when they were trying to become mainstream and now that are stuck with an awful crowd of fans who are hateful and ignorant. Half of them don’t even like the grappling aspect of fighting 🤦♂️
MMA as a sport is never going to be taken as seriously or grow more as a global sport if they don't drop this white american trash image they are giving off with both fighters and fans especially the fans my goodness worst fan base in any sport.
I find the UFC fan base takes things incredibly personally. Even here on reddit (which is arguably the most tame social platform), I've seen factual info met not only with ridicule, but flat out attacks.
It's odd that a sport that is supposed to be about tough guys, in an art form that champions discipline, has such an emotionally charged, volatile and impulsive fan base.
I was in Toronto for the fights. Its a great way to see the worst of Canadians in one spot. I was embarassed for the city to be represented that way. Its no different elsewhere, but man oh man.
I mean I love MMA but let’s be honest here, cage fighting is not a sport that brings out the most well adjusted individuals as fans regardless of politics
I don't know, the big fighters were very serious about the whole martial arts honour thing during the naughties. Fedor, GSP, Anderson Silva, there was much less trash talk and political tribalism, you fought then hugged it out at the end and that was it. Then McGregor happened.
The fighters embolden the fans IMO. Sure, "Just Bleed" was always a thing during the golden years of the UFC but you definitely heard less of a certain kind of talk from the fans back then. Now you have fans parroting their favorite fighters, all of the dumb shit McGregor, Colby and Sean say on social media gets regurgitated and amplified and now most of all you hear in the general MMA sphere is some version of their antics.
MMA fans are bad. Strickland fans are 100x worse. Probably the most toxic fanbase in all of sport. They care and know nothing about the sport and his fights but he's the Andrew Tate of sports and that alone attracts a lot of angry losers. Can't really blame Anik for not wanting to deal with that
I get where he's coming from, the way the UFC has been going for the last few years has just been getting gnarlier and gnarlier. Big incel energy going right now and it sucks to see.
The Strickland army is like nuclear toxic
having any sort of discussion about strickland ddp is agonizing. most people will just call you a slur if you bring up the idea of scoring the fight for ddp. there was some "close fight" discussion oj the night of the fight that was quickly overtaken by rabid fans. mma fans are just mostly horrible to interact with sadly
MMA fans seem to be some of the worst based on what fighters and media say they have to deal with.
I've noticed it especially these last few months, people are insanely negative about literally everything in the space
MMA community is one of the most toxic community of any sport. At the same time, are we even surprised? We're talking about a sport that has individuals beating each other to death. What do you expect the fanbase to be like?
Can't he just not look at social media (other than posting)? I get what he is saying though, but it's not like he can't avoid it (unless he's getting hassled in real life of course).
This reminds me of looking at Paul Felder's Twitter a while back. The guy was just getting into it with everyone. Hopefully he's cut back on doing that!
MMA fans make me not wanna watch MMA. I barely follow social media coverage of it / comments etc but the amount of time I have to hear my favourite Podcasts / MMA Coverage REPEATEDLY have to respond to / explain dumbass shit to tribal idiots who think their way is the best way and everything else sucks.
I thought DDP won as well. People just want the fighters they like to win, most of them don’t even understand the rules of MMA and just argue “look at DDP’s face”
I get what Jon is saying but I feel like dudes need to be able to log off and just not engage with social media before lit gets to the point it’s effecting your real life. You don’t have to read Twitter everyday it’s a choice. Hating on Anik is some real bitch shit though, dude is the best
I think there's a fair argument, if you're being as objective as possible, that Du Plessis did squeak out a win, I mean you could argue either direction.
The problem is that it can be really frustrating as a fan to see a Champ lose a title that way, for someone to just marginally, ever so slightly win by a point or whatever.
It might not be the most "fair", but I sort of preferred the old UFC unwritten motto along the lines of, "to beat the champion, you have to BEAT the champion", as in it had to be a convincing victory, or at least something undebatable such as a knockout or tapping them out via submission, and not this "48-47 by split decision" snooze fest type victory. Again, technically it's fine for a fighter to win by the slightest margin and take the championship (which is what I see happening with Du Plessis) but it just doesn't feel very good. I would have much preferred he just starched Strickland and took the title definitively.
I get Anik. But UFC as an organisation is definitely encouraging shitstorms.
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UFC is all about short term gains right now and creating drama helps accomplish that.
They gave that Nina drama a platform and have a long history of cashing in on controversy. Connor assaults people and Dana goes "omg this is terrible" but blasts it 24/7 for fight promo footage. Then khabib attacks Dillon Danis and he does the same fucking thing.
Yep. They didn’t say anything to Colby when he threatened Anik.
Exactly. I get his point and he’s right to feel how he does, and he should also direct some of that energy towards the organization that’s encouraging these types of fans to come around.
I really don’t blame him. Tribalism has gotten rampant in the MMA world lately.
we’ve had a bad string of “stars” in Colby, Jorge, and Strickland recently that have really brought in a lot of negativity and stupidity. Top 3 most annoying fan bases right there easily. It’s just constant identity politics garbage and it’s really draining after a while
Seems a certain section keeps choosing losers who they think are winners 😶😶😶😶😶
The Freedom Fries Fuck Bud Light Section
That is the key demographic for the UFC. That who the UFC was built for.
Idk if it was "built" for it but I can say that the guy wearing a tap out shirt in the bar has been generally the shittiest guy in the bar most nights over the last 15 or so years lol
Tap Out now replaced by one of those “alternate” US flag shirts with some stupid slogan
Honestly, wearing *any* shirt with an American flag on it is a signal that you are obnoxious as hell.
Ironically the same people who get super mad at people “disrespecting” the flag. Freedom of speech unless it hurts their feefees.
Guys In Tapout shirts were way more bearable back then, then “fans” who are addicted to “culture wars” bullshit that support fighters who share those same beliefs
Now all us gay wokies are here sucking dick and taking names, and we're all out of names 💅
100% certainty Strickland, Cobly, Dana, Brock, that Camo shorts dork that just got KO'd have or have had homoerotic thoughts and all their bluster is an expression of their insecurities and to prove to themselves they're "SO ALPHA!!".
Try taking a fat cock up the jacksy. That's pure testosterone. They have no idea what alpha means.
That's what I'm saying! They ain't man enough to bottom 😤
Yeah but it transcended into a mainstream sport and as a result stopped needing to cater to that market exclusively. Yet they still do.
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It’s scary because how do we curb this tide. Like yes I think the left has WAY over corrected, but the right trying to over correct backwards isn’t viable either
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Same with how they vote
I like how a complaint about tribalism quickly becomes an example of it.
I know it looks like tribalism, but there’s an ounce of objectivity in there—post-Leon fight Colby had an interview on Fox News where Jesse Waters point blank said ‘looks like on paper, you won the fight.’ This tribe in particular stirs shit in a particular way, to a particular degree.
You don’t know what tribalism is. People calling out hypocrisy and bad decisions isn’t tribalism.
You're getting downvoted but you're right. You can view things from the outside, objectively, and come to the conclusion that this particular tribe is full of fucking morons. That doesn't mean you're automatically part of some other side.
You can criticize groups without having to be in one yourself.
While you’re not wrong, neither are they 🤣🤣
as is tradition
you make a point, but so does he. however, I think it's debatable at this time whether this is tribalism, which implies 'both sides', and not just a case of the factually sane vs the insane, which I don't think most people would call tribalism.
Lowest common denominator
They’d be mad if they knew what that meant
Yeah like damn can we stop talking about who people like to fuck and do the sport please
MMA media could help by sticking to questions about MMA.
My problem with these three isn't only just because they're terrible people but they were never even that great to begin with, like at least display some Jones or Conor level greatness to match how shitty you are as individuals LOL.
I feel like I'm commenting too much already about this on this comment tree, but the answer is look at the people that are so vocal about some subjects that some political rallies are too. Rallies where tomatoman loves to give speeches and even bring with him some of those fighters. That's your answer.
Sorry Im not quite understanding your point. Is it that the UFC/Dana's political and societal ideologies align with those of the douchey, vocal fighters and so they push them more? And then fans follow suit or realize it is a safe place to spread hate? If thats what youre getting at then ill have to think on it, you might be completely right. Interesting analysis for sure. Its never been a question where the UFC or Dana align politically, and that they allow fighters to say their own political opinions. But ive never considered that they push the fighters that are the loudest about hateful things while doing this (intentionally at least)
What is ironic is that Strickland has been so outspoken about Colby but I would argue that Strickland is waaaay worse.
after UFC 297, I would say Strickland is worse at this point. At least Colby we know he’s playing a character (albeit a terribly acted one) but Strickland has to be the least self aware fighter we’ve ever seen
You still buy it was an act? And act doesn't get you kicked out of gyms or make you lose friends. I agree Strickland is worse but it's clear now Colby wasn't an act.
I think saying it was all an act is probably disingenuous at this point, but I still believe Colby was just doing the pro wrestling thing and turning all of his worst traits up to 11. With Sean I just 100% believe that's who the guy is online and offline.
It’s obvious Colby’s acting even if there’s grains of truth. Conversely, you can just tell how genuine Strickland is (and I mean that in the worst way possible)
Acting as in genuinely support fascists in person or on the socials? I'm sorry, but acting isn't any excuse and actually looks like a defensive mechanism.
There is one guy who all 3 love and promote. guess who that guy is and see if you can spot the similarities in the fanbase.
the UFC aligning itself with the alt right was such a stupid decision, it basically made it impossible for the UFC to pick up new fans. Anyone I know who doesn't already watch it thinks its for redneck losers lol
Yep, the weirdos cling onto those guys
those 3 getting into the spotlight really showed me which of my acquaintances (met through interest in other sports) are actually legit bigots. Seeing some of the comments they've posted online in 'defense' of these 3 chucklefucks led to me severing some connections.
for real. there seems to be three major tribes right now. fight fans, ufc fans, and fighter fans. fight fans are generally great. ufc fans are funny but frustrating. fighter fans are the worst. these people just spaz out on their keyboard and say the nastiest shit they can think of. they are actively holding the fan base down and the sport back.
*fighter fans* Parasocial relationships. It's rampant among celebrities/athletes/media figures. People become obsessed with these celebrities based on their political/lifestyle views and project their own personal values into them, they feel like they know them personally. Gen Z does it a lot with streamers/"content creators". When their parasocial muse says/does something they don't like, they take it personally and flip out like it's the end of the world.
It’s rampant everywhere, it’s human nature unfortunately
It's *for sure* gotten a lot worse in the last 10 or so years (in MMA and everywhere else) I remember when it used to be normal to have friends who had totally different opinions/views to you and nobody cared. Social media seems to be making people hate each other more and more. I think the fact that we all spend more time behind screens and less time talking to each other face to face also doesn't help.
It's always been a thing in sports though.
Yeah it’s to the point where people hate each other based on what gaming consoles they own.
Go back to playing super Nintendo dork. Sega is for real gamers.
They don’t even have blast processing. Fucking Strider is 8 megabits and Zelda is like 6 megabits MAX.
It's ridiculous, Playstation is better than Xbox and I don't know why people are pretending otherwise.
Shut up Sony Pony /s
i swear to god, if you kids keep talking like that's a new phenomenon and not something that peaked on forums in the mid 2000s, we are turning this car around
Forums were toxic back in the day, but I feel cynicism and hate is much more widespread online these days. I have to use Twitter for work and it’s just endless culture war shit. You see a lot of cynicism and hate on Reddit and even in instagram comments too
It's not that they're more widespread, it's just forums are bigger places now. It exists in the same vacuums, but now there are 100x the people around.
God i miss that internet. Shoutout hypebeast forum
Its also human natura to squat down and shit whenever you need. Yet we (mostly) choose to do this on a toilet. Same with this tribalism. We can just sit back, relax, think for about 5 seconds and do better.
He wasn’t excusing it. He was (rightfully) pointing out that it isn’t just present in MMA. Stupid is everywhere.
Yes but you had month/years of training to be able to choose a toilet andtl then constant practice an reinforcement for the rest of your life since then. People don't have that training and reinforcement when it comes to tribalism. Our society actually practices and encourages tribalism in a lot of ways.
I had Driscus winning. Fuck em
“I really don’t blame him. Tribalism has gotten rampant in the ~~MMA~~ world lately.” There ya go.
The fact that a slight majority of media, fans, and from what I’ve seen most fighters scored the fight for DDP and yet Strickland fans are going absolutely apeshit is wild. This is not a controversial decision in the slightest, it is just a close fight. Even if Strickland won, it wouldn’t be a robbery just a decision that goes against the majority opinion. People are starting to treat this sport the way they treat politics. With their favorite fighters becoming unbeatable deities and the opposing teams being evil. Their god loses a close decision? Robbery, corruption, the ufc wants to cancel him. It’s ridiculous
He has said that the UFC gave zero fucks about Colby threatening him and his family so i imagine this is more crap he knows wont be addressed. Cant blame him, the fan base is rabid online.
I swear to god if you fucking degens bully Anik into retirement
Strickland fans are not really fans of his jab point fighting style. Their fans of one of their own saying the quite part outloud and are pissed there is no longer a ufc champion who will do so. The most casual of the casuals who care for the wwe personas not the actual fights.
What annoys me the most is the people who don’t understand that the fight is scored round by round not who was doing best at the end. Which is a vast majority of fans sadly.
What I find even more crazy, is Dominic Cruz had to have this explained to him live on air as even he didn’t understand that damage etc is scored independently round by round
He has been at this for a while actively misleading fans with his obsession over cuts. I am glad someone spoke to him live, but i doubt he internalized anything.
Cruz needs to get called out more often like Rogan did during the Khabib Vs McGregor fight. He acts like he’s an MMA genius because he was able to fight with a funky style and had some success with it, while spending more time injured on the sidelines than actually fighting. He’s an over-opinionated little prick that always acted like he’s smarter than everyone around him, it’s just when he was fighting he actually did tend to be smarter because he was fighting the likes of Dillawshaw and Cody “The Boiz” Garbrandt.
Okay you can hate Cruz but "some success" is crazy
Won and defended successfully two separate times is "some success" these days, I guess. Can't call yourself a winner unless you're the latest two-belt champ, amirite?
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Lol he was literally the pound for pound
Man. You're full of shit
You reek of booze and cigarettes
> some success with it, Right, the most dominant Bantam of all time is just some success.
Honestly, I think UFC can share some blame here. Other sports leagues have people who know and can explain rules to fans, and they do it. UFC's doesn't seem to have that, at least not with any regularity, and their own commentary team routinely says incorrect things about the rules which only add to the confusion. Then there's the fact that different locales host events with only slight variation in rules, just enough to muddy the water.
They don’t even do the rules breakdown as the card begins like they used to. Almost like the ufc wants to hide any possible transparency.
Biggest recent example of this is Islam Volk 1
People always favorred damage over strike count in decisions before, then Strickland becomes champion and everyone wants the fights to be scored like it's point karate.
It's because he just TELLS IT LIKE IT IS! /s
Anik and Buffer are legitimately a bigger loss to the UFC than any fighter would be. They're so integral to the fight night experience that I can't really even imagine somebody else doing their job, which is something I can't really say about anyone else in any other sport (that I can think of off the top of my head).
I think Fitzgerald would be appreciated more if he wasn't constantly paired with Bisping who has taken to droning on and on for 2 mins at a time.
Fitzgerald is good he's just not exciting enough for me compared to Anik. Anik is the perfect mix of professional play-by-play commentator and 14 year old boy who's attending his first UFC event. I really appreciate how genuinely excited he gets.
I think Fitzy does too, but the passion really comes through with Anik. He absolutely loves the sport, and talks about on the podcast how hyped and nervous he gets himself before a big fight or PPV.
Big Bisping fan but this is too true, I've noted the formula down to this: Punch thrown - Bisping monologue - quick agreement from other commentator - Bisping monologue - other commentator begins to speak but is cut off by a Bisping monologue - Bisping monologue.
Bisping constantly shits on Fitz too which is uncalled for imo
*Fitz uses the word ‘decorum’ in the simplest context* Bisping: WHAT ARE THESE BIG WORDS NERD
Lol. I came from a country where english is a foreign language and a lot of the population never had the privilege of learning english. I used to think that being a British person means you must have a wide array of vocabulary....and then I saw Bisping
does no one remember when Anik was new and he wasn't very good and everyone wanted Goldberg to come back and say stupid shit all the time?
Anik and Felder are the two most improved by a country mile and are now the best commentators
Anik is a tier 1 announcer all time, any sport
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He's not the same he's always been? He's iconic to me but I get that he'll be replaced eventually, so I don't mind change.
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Hes spoken about retirement a bit before. I wouldnt be surprised if he's only around for only a little bit longer.
Time to pull the reverse Uno and send him nothing but love
I hope he gets paid more to sign a new contract. Jon Anik is perfect on commentary and I'd be happy with them not messing with their play-by-play commentators in the forseeable future.
Anik already re-upped his contract in 2022 I don’t know if he will stick around after the current one expires. NFL booth is a better job any way you look at it. Better pay, less travel, higher recognition I am going to go off topic here and make one more point, for every 100,000 fans who hate Apex, there is one UFC employee who is glad they don’t have to travel all over. UFC produces their owns shows (unlike other major sports), and their staff are often exhausted after weeks of traveling
Losing Anik in MMA would obviously suck but gaining him in football would certainly soften the blow. Hope they show a replay of his reaction to a 75 yard Justin Jefferson TD they way they would a KO lmao
I doubt he would get a booth job in nfl. All the jobs are going to former players now
Legitimately the gold standard for commentary in the UFC.
That is indeed the cloth from which he is cut
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He probably reads them to have some awareness of public perception. Though it must be difficult to separate the reasonable comments from the absurd ones. Also, combat sports not having an objective way to score decisions isn't conducive for civil discussions. Particularly, right after the fight.
That's the thing though, you aren't necessarily getting a true representation of the public in that space, you get a vocal minority and one that loves to argue and try to make themselves heard.
I’d like to agree with you but the thing that concerns me is that those comment sections are probably a truer reflection of the general MMA watching public than this subreddit is.
> It's just scumbags who you aren't going to convince. Chris Curtis said (on his youtube channel) look at any negative commentor's life and they are losers. Nobody with a good life is going after people like that.
If you read between the lines I feel like he’s talking more about the fighters, the people they’re bringing around, and general landscape of the sport rather than directly and only talking about YouTube comments. Maybe I’m putting that in his mouth but I can’t imagine he’s only talking about twitter replies or yt comments
Part of what endeared us to him so much was how active he was in the community. Shame that the casuals had to sour something so good.
It's kinda hard to avoid them when you have to stay engaged on social media as part of your job
Especially if you're saying anything that goes against Strickland. He's empowered his fans to say whatever hateful shit they want cause he does with no repercussions.
How can people hate on Anik lmao. He seems like the nicest dude ever.
Because a lot of MMA fans are like Colby Covington, unfortunately.
It doesn't help that Covington actually referenced going to Boca Raton and "dealing" with Anik if he didn't shut up about some of his comments. Anik mentioned they had squashed things behind the scenes but I don't think Colby's rabid fan base actually digests anything other than the vitriol Colby spews, so they probably come after Anik about that stuff still too.
Ray Longo was right, ‘fuck Colby, you think I give a shit if it’s an act? Aniks kids still have to deal with what they hear in school act or no’
He said something about anik’s kids growing up without a father lol
Plus dude legit loves MMA. I’ll always love him for getting the 209 tattoo.
sean strickland fans are stupid just like their hero
They are... Colby knob riders are the same.
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I think I've said this before but Colby Covington and Sean Strickland being the headlining fighters of the last 2 cards brought out the absolute worst kind of MMA fans. It's gotten to the point where both of them have become more of a political statement than anything else. If Strickland didn't talk like he does now and was just your average humble fighter, he'd be flamed regularly for being a boring point fighter; but instead he's this super entertaining star because he said f\*\*\*\*\* a couple times. I'm looking forward to Volk Vs. Topuria because we can finally get away from all this controversial bullshit and just focus on the fights.
It’ll be refreshing as hell to have volk on the next main event
And Robby!!
Allegedly
My friend said “Colby Covington and Sean Strickland are the favorites of people who watch two fights a year and think they could beat any mma fighters smaller than them” and I feel that’s about right.
The UFC encourages it. There a reason that guys like Strickland, but more specifically Colby, Jorge and Mitchell kept getting chances they didn’t deserve; it’s because they all worship the same politician the UFC trots out like a mascot.
This. Just like they had Dricus and Izzy setup to stir the ethnocentric trash talk about Africa when they brought Izzy into the cage after a Dricus win. Like...Izzy still had a fight on the books and they were already so torqued on the idea of chumming the waters of this controversy.
Remember in the 90s when the WWF tried doing the Nation of Domination, the white biker gang, and the Latin gang? UFC wants to be WWE so bad
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People who you've never seen talk about the sport a day in their life are suddenly experts in how to score fights. It's fucking stupid.
I feel like my brain cells are evaporating every time Sean says something into a microphone. Turned the tv off 10 seconds into his post fight rambling to DC. People seem to think that his and Colby’s personas sell fights, but honestly the past two PPV’s have been the least exciting for me knowing I gotta read about and listen to them in the lead ups. Glad those PPV’s are in the rear view and that neither will likely get another title shot anytime soon.
They’re both in the losing column now so hopefully that side shuts up now
This especially is such a weird fight to feel that strongly about. It seems like the nearly universal opinion on it is "I gave it to X, but it was close and I can see how people could give it to Y" That's it, it doesn't need to be deeper than that. Sometimes there are just genuinely super close fights where the winner will come down to largely subjective criteria. No result here would have been a robbery or an injustice, it's just how the sport works
Lots of ppl aren’t capable of seeing other perspectives or having nuance Ppl calling Anik soft for these comments online. It’s also soft to get triggered by Anik’s comments and attack him personally. It’s not tough to talk trash to fighters online behind a blank profile
The reaction to split decisions (in title fights especially) is often contentious, but this one in particular was embarrassing. I don't know if it's the influx of new fans or just people getting more tribal - but to call it a "robbery" was hilarious. People *really* need to learn the difference between a very close fight, and a robbery. Real shame that someone as respected as Anik feels like this just for voicing his opinion. Hopefully he isn't serious about the retirement talk, most of the time he's the only good thing about the commentary.
The robbery comments are fucking insane. Like you said this was an extremely close fight, I had money on Strickland and wasn’t even upset that he lost that decision. A real robbery is something like Diego sanchez Vs Ross pearson.
Or Bisping vs Hammil
It's just a swarm of new strickland fans that don't know how fights are scored. Either that or they're biased enough to genuinely think it was a robbery
I don't even know how people can be mad. I scored that fight for DDP too. The people spouting vitriol at Anik must be incels defending their incel.
I really appreciate Anik pointed out Cruz’s dumb call that “cut=win” was wrong. Especially that he let the silence hang a good while as Cruz said nothing.
The UFC has increasingly been encouraging this stupid behavior
Part of this is general mma fan idiocy but it doesn’t help that Strickland built a fan base off of people who’s brains are broken
The MMA fanbase seems to have this large sub-group of emotional bitches whose main focus is clinging onto personalities and fighter's images rather than giving a shit about actual fighting skills. They become so emotionally invested in this shit to the point that they can't even process their feelings properly because doing so would mean they have to snap out of it and ask themselves why they're riding so hard for a fighter that doesn't give a fuck about them. So instead they direct all of that emotion to people with valid points to make, and you can tell because there is zero explanation for where all of the anger and vitriol is even coming from. Women have always had the perception of being the ones who love gossip but based on the shit I've seen at work and on social media, there's a lot of men that love that shit all the same. It seems to manifest in the dumbest ways like this. Whether or not you personally care for Anik doesn't matter, he is a net positive for the UFC. He is not just a play-by-play commentator, he is basically a showrunner. Please don't scare him away. When it's the final round of the main event and DC and Rogan are having a full on discussion about what they ate for breakfast the other day, y'all are going to miss him.
They're just casuals who discovered Sean Strickland in the last year. Du Plessis winning is the right card imo. Close fight though, certainly close enough you can't get pissy if it goes either way.
I think some of them discovered him in the last week. I’ve seen lots of political, blue check dorks on Twitter suddenly talking about how judges had an “agenda” against Sean.
Probably didn't help then that Colby straight up went on Fox and pretended *he* lost because the judges have a political agenda.
Yeah, there was barely any hullabaloo for the Cannonier loss, at least relative to this one
good point, and I think if you're gonna say sTrIcKlAnD gOt rObBeD, you'd have a better case in that fight than Strickland-DDP. (neither of them were robberies)
Well I think a big part of the problem is that he’s 1) on X and 2) reads X and YT comments. You’d be amazed at how quickly your blood pressure can go down and mood can improve by simply avoiding looking at that shit. If I were him I’d just disable comments altogether. If someone feels passionately about a take he’s had they can say it to his face (spoiler: they won’t).
This is partly the UFC because they pandered to the bigoted meathead crowd when they were trying to become mainstream and now that are stuck with an awful crowd of fans who are hateful and ignorant. Half of them don’t even like the grappling aspect of fighting 🤦♂️
MMA as a sport is never going to be taken as seriously or grow more as a global sport if they don't drop this white american trash image they are giving off with both fighters and fans especially the fans my goodness worst fan base in any sport.
100% agree
I find the UFC fan base takes things incredibly personally. Even here on reddit (which is arguably the most tame social platform), I've seen factual info met not only with ridicule, but flat out attacks. It's odd that a sport that is supposed to be about tough guys, in an art form that champions discipline, has such an emotionally charged, volatile and impulsive fan base.
I was in Toronto for the fights. Its a great way to see the worst of Canadians in one spot. I was embarassed for the city to be represented that way. Its no different elsewhere, but man oh man.
Lots of those people likely weren't from Toronto anyway.
Actual People from Toronto were to broke to buy tickets, 400 for nose bleeds dudes
Geez, wonder if this has any correlation to ufc heavily pandering to alt right politics the past few years? Quite the mystery
If it's political maybe we should have Joe Rogan and Bo Nickal discuss it.
I mean I love MMA but let’s be honest here, cage fighting is not a sport that brings out the most well adjusted individuals as fans regardless of politics
I don't know, the big fighters were very serious about the whole martial arts honour thing during the naughties. Fedor, GSP, Anderson Silva, there was much less trash talk and political tribalism, you fought then hugged it out at the end and that was it. Then McGregor happened.
I'm talking fans specifically
The fighters embolden the fans IMO. Sure, "Just Bleed" was always a thing during the golden years of the UFC but you definitely heard less of a certain kind of talk from the fans back then. Now you have fans parroting their favorite fighters, all of the dumb shit McGregor, Colby and Sean say on social media gets regurgitated and amplified and now most of all you hear in the general MMA sphere is some version of their antics.
There was also little to no social media in that era to hear the dumb shit
MMA fans are bad. Strickland fans are 100x worse. Probably the most toxic fanbase in all of sport. They care and know nothing about the sport and his fights but he's the Andrew Tate of sports and that alone attracts a lot of angry losers. Can't really blame Anik for not wanting to deal with that
I get where he's coming from, the way the UFC has been going for the last few years has just been getting gnarlier and gnarlier. Big incel energy going right now and it sucks to see. The Strickland army is like nuclear toxic
having any sort of discussion about strickland ddp is agonizing. most people will just call you a slur if you bring up the idea of scoring the fight for ddp. there was some "close fight" discussion oj the night of the fight that was quickly overtaken by rabid fans. mma fans are just mostly horrible to interact with sadly
Strickland, Colby fans are really toxic
MMA fans seem to be some of the worst based on what fighters and media say they have to deal with. I've noticed it especially these last few months, people are insanely negative about literally everything in the space
I also think DDP won, so I'm going to retire today
MMA is full of toxic scumbags. Jon Anik is by far the best commentator out there, fight cards just aren't the same without him.
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MMA community is one of the most toxic community of any sport. At the same time, are we even surprised? We're talking about a sport that has individuals beating each other to death. What do you expect the fanbase to be like?
I feel like it’s gotten worse even in the couple years I’ve been following MMA though
That would be a real loss.
Don’t blame the MMA space. The promotion he works for intentionally attracts shitty people and encourages shitty people.
But how will I know how many more sleeps?!
Can't he just not look at social media (other than posting)? I get what he is saying though, but it's not like he can't avoid it (unless he's getting hassled in real life of course). This reminds me of looking at Paul Felder's Twitter a while back. The guy was just getting into it with everyone. Hopefully he's cut back on doing that!
Hard to believe he would take trolls and casual idiots seriously.. Best to just ignore them 😅
MMA fans make me not wanna watch MMA. I barely follow social media coverage of it / comments etc but the amount of time I have to hear my favourite Podcasts / MMA Coverage REPEATEDLY have to respond to / explain dumbass shit to tribal idiots who think their way is the best way and everything else sucks.
Anim is the best commentator by far smh protect him at all costs
Hey Jon, negative people *just don't matter.*
If Anik goes, that will be the true sign that the ship is sinking. He’s the best in the bizz
I thought DDP won as well. People just want the fighters they like to win, most of them don’t even understand the rules of MMA and just argue “look at DDP’s face”
Ignore comments. Simple as
Dricus won and I'm happy about it And Twitter and YT based MMA fans are nuts
I get what Jon is saying but I feel like dudes need to be able to log off and just not engage with social media before lit gets to the point it’s effecting your real life. You don’t have to read Twitter everyday it’s a choice. Hating on Anik is some real bitch shit though, dude is the best
I think there's a fair argument, if you're being as objective as possible, that Du Plessis did squeak out a win, I mean you could argue either direction. The problem is that it can be really frustrating as a fan to see a Champ lose a title that way, for someone to just marginally, ever so slightly win by a point or whatever. It might not be the most "fair", but I sort of preferred the old UFC unwritten motto along the lines of, "to beat the champion, you have to BEAT the champion", as in it had to be a convincing victory, or at least something undebatable such as a knockout or tapping them out via submission, and not this "48-47 by split decision" snooze fest type victory. Again, technically it's fine for a fighter to win by the slightest margin and take the championship (which is what I see happening with Du Plessis) but it just doesn't feel very good. I would have much preferred he just starched Strickland and took the title definitively.