Is MMA A Sport Or Entertainment?
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Dustin Poirier made an appearance on the MMA Hour this week to discuss the possibility of Jon Jones vs Alex Pereira with Ariel Helwani and they got onto the discussion of whether that fight made any sense within the sport of MMA. Poirier suggested that first they needed to ask if it was legit or entertainment.
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#ufc #mma #dustinpoirier #alexpereira #jonjones #tomaspinall #conormcgregor
All sports is an entertainment for spectators but not all entertainment is sport.
Well said.
The only reason ever to televise sports is entertainment/money
Amen.
I wouldn't say all sport is entertainment. Many are very slow and have little-to-no entertainment value for spectators.
Not all sports are entertainment tho
MMA might be a sport, the UFC is entertainment.
the UFC is a professional sports organisation like the NBA and NFL
@@harrywatson2694 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
MMA/UFC is a sport. The fans treat its as entertainment
I think this is honestly it- people fight and train mma as a sport and compete, but the UFC treats itself as an entertainment company more than it does a sports league
That's 100% it. Can't believe they didn't say it. It's obvious.
Nuanced but I see MMA as a sport & the UFC is an entertainment company that happens to promote MMA. There’s too many instances of the UFC having no rules, polices, or procedures as an organization. They’re not even certain if their fighters are employees or contractors.
They're only pretending too be uncertain about that because employees get far better pay and benefits
It's one of the only sports not run by a sports organization. It's a sport run by entertainment organizations
Good way of putting it
Doesn't nearly every other sport also have a Union?
@@tdylanYeah about every sport I can think of has some type of players association representing them and/or a collective bargaining agreement in place with the league they play in
It's moments when Jones gets called a GOAT (a 6 times PED cheat ) or when Sean gets to defend his strap against Chito instead of Merab and Aldo gets no rematch against Conor is when you know it's entertainment.
Thankyou for speaking the truth
And wrestlers being forced to have longer winning streaks while strikers get fast-tracked.
Fans drive the match ups our problem is a big part of the UFC fanbase is casual fans that want fights that proper MMA fans just don't want to see. Don't see how to fix that without mma as a whole going backwards massively.
You can dislike the person all you want but saying Jon Jones isn't one of the GOATs is just straight up delusional
@@gabrielpasqualini8413 There is a double standard when it comes to Jon Jones, he's not lying.
After O’Malley winning the fighter of the year award……. Corrupt Entertainment
who actually cares about the fighter of the year award
@@harrywatson2694who cares about fighter of the year, who cares about P4P, who cares about GOAT, bro if you don’t care about something don’t discuss it. Very simple.
it's ESPN. there are other awards out there
Jbj is the GOAT 🐐 @@oldashfifa
@@oldashfifa haha fucken roasted him. bro shouldnt show his face ever again
It's both, it has rules and regulations like all other sports however it doesn't always make sense and some fights are put together because the promoters believe more people would rather pay to watch a specific champion take on another specific fighter even if they aren't the rightfully number one contender. Not to mention how over the top fighters like Chael Sonnen and Conor McGregor are and how their personalities not only match it but never change which is what makes MMA entertainment. In fact the only difference between MMA and Pro Wrestling is the outcome of a fight in MMA isn't predetermined, otherwise it would be considered sports entertainment and not debated as one or the other.
It’s both
This is really the correct answer. All sports are unscripted entertainment.
Sport comes first.
@@jamesreynolds7949it should but we've seen the ufc sacrifice "doing the right thing" by the sport & athletes (ala Belal's title shot) for entertainment/needle movers.
@@lobo_solo214 Overall at least, I'd say sport comes first, at the very least it does to me.
@@jamesreynolds7949I don't care about "overall". If they're allowed to do that at all then there aren't enough regulations in play and therefore isn't a sport. In real sports there's a tournament bracket to determine the champion, and record during the season determines seeding. There's no such thing as putting a guy like chito over merab or colby over belal to fight for the belt. Everybody gets their fair chance at a championship, no fast tracks or long roads based on entertainment.
Every year we say we don’t want mma to become boxing and yet every year we cheer as it gets closer to it smh
“UFC/WWE are the Virtually Identical.”
-Mike Goldberg
Now more than ever
all sports are entertainment technically
but I believe that MMA IS A SPORT
All sports are entertainment
To fans
@@Micisme86 they wouldn’t exist without the fans. These ppl would not get in the cage unless they were getting paid for it. They wouldn’t be paid if no one was watching
Sports do exist without fans. Friends play together for the fun of it, for the competition.
@@irasac1 cage fighting doesn’t.
@@heisenberg6142 People fight for the fuck of it literally all the time bro lmaoooo
The BMF belt is supposed to be for dogs. Like actual bad ass dudes. A dude who goes up in weight to ko the dude with the belt makes it legit cuz a bad mfer is actually holding it...
MMA Fans - "Pride never die!"
Also MMA Fans - "The UFC needs to assign opponents based on rankings, not entertainment".
In an ideal world we would have both
Difference was that pride fighters fought lot more often so there was some freak fights in between
It's a sport just like boxing. Combat and big personalities!
Jason made a really good point regarding Conor. For all his popularity Conor needed the Mendes win to be legitimized as a serious threat to the belt. Both to answer the wrestling question and face a guy who was proven at the elite level.
In contrast it highlights the big issue I have with Pereira. Some fighters have won 10-11 fights in a row without getting a sniff of a belt, while Pereira was allowed to jump to the top of two weight classes after 3 and 1 fight respectively, all while being allowed to bypass wrestlers. What's to say he gets anywhere near title number 1 if he had to fight Fluffy Hernandez, Marvin Vettori etc?
Until that question gets answered I kinda feel his pedestal has been built on sand. If he stuffs Ankalaev's takedowns and finishes him people can go crazy, but imagine if Ankalaev shoots in the first 30 seconds and makes him look like James Toney?
Agreed. It's not ankalaev personally I care for but he needs to face that one 'wrestler type on paper' either way I do think Jon wrestles him and finishes him on the ground
He would KO Vettori everyday lf the week mate😂
Both, although the UFC leans towards entertainment but that's no surprise. Money fights and PPVs are priority over meaningful fights for the divisions
Ufc is like a football league. Its definitely sport, and yes sports can be entertaining.
In established sports like football (soccer), there are "entertainment matches". But its a sport. It has rules, it has physical activity and it has a competition.
Everyone knows our best Athletes don't compete in sports they are either in Prison or in and out of jail.
UFC at the beginning was absolutely interesting to find out which martial art was legit. Karate, jujitsu, muy tai, wrestling, sambo, boxing... but back then there was also taikwando, Kung fu, sumo, and other b.s. martial arts... and most of us weren't sure which was which.
There wasn't sambo, and it's not the martial art it's the martial artist
Taekwando moves are still utilized fairly regularly in MMA
Taikwando is legit tho just not in the way they do their tournaments
@@BlackWolf-vs6uo find me a UFC fighter that walks out and the announcer says, "His background is in Taikwando." If it's so legit, why isn't it being used where people test which martial arts are the best? Or did you learn this all from Mr. Kim? 😀
@@mma__4_ever Oleg Taktarov was at UFC 5.
The NFL wants Mahomes in the Super Bowl but he has to earn it. They can’t just put him in it like Dana can put someone in for a title shot just because of the entertainment value. The NFL and NBA are competition first. The UFC picks and chooses which is more important at the time
It's sports entertainment. If it's televised and if you pay for tickets to see it, then it's sports entertainment. Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, boxing, MMA.....sports entertainment.
MMA is professional wrestling without predetermined finishes
So what it used to be
In short it's both
I think there is a third category that this all actually fits into and that is prize fighting. Professional boxing, kickboxing, MMA, etc. all derive from the moment two people agreed to fight each other for money. And those two people, --whoever they were -- likely did it for the money (the prize) more than anything else, which I would argue falls under entertainment more than sport.
The fact Conor can repeatedly go on a multi year coke binge and just walk back into a title shot for no reason shows how much its entertainment over sport.
It's skeleton is a sport but there are situations where entertainment drives the numbers and that's where it crosses the line. It's a sport for lower ranked or less known fighters.
1. Business
2 a. Sport
2 b. Entertainment
Mma isn’t a business 😂
@@jokein1227it is ma man
Ufc started to trend towards Entertainment strictly when TUF became announced!
As long as Dana white is in business with UFC, they will never change their ways!
I wouldn’t be disappointed if Dana resigns. Heck I was hoping he did back in 2014.
Sports entertainment. Not in the same sense as WWE but there are similar elements within both companies. The ranking system makes it a sport, but occasionally there are situations where paring certain fighters would be better for business. Context is everything.
it use to be a sport till mcgregor and rousey. then it became entertainment. UFC is WWE. Drama gets your next fight, not your skill.
This is more of an issue for MMA than most other sports, because fighters only have a handful of UFC fights in their whole career. Months between each matchup. The UFC can never get true sporting clarity at any one time, because each guy in the top 10 of any division has probably only fought 2 or 3 of the other guys in the top 10. They can't all 'play' each other once or twice per calendar year to see what's what. There are so few opportunities to compete, and they depend on availability, injuries, contracts (none of them are compelled to take any given fight). Therefore the UFC has to selectively put things together that make some kind of sense on whatever level, not so much just on a meritocratic level, because it's so hard to quantify, with so many gaps in the data. So entertainment value and human interest storylines can take precedence. Unfortunately that can result in them booking absolute atrocities like O'Malley vs Vera, Covington vs Edwards, Jones vs Stipe for actual titles. They need to cut that out, they're straying too far from any kind of integrity lately. None of the supposed 'entertainment value' remains intact if we no longer feel we're finding out who the 'ultimate fighter' is.
I watch mma for entertainment but i legit hate the entertainment factor. I watch to see best fight the best. I don't care about followers or popularity or ppv numbers etc. Just have the best fight the best. No politics. Would be awesome
MMA Right On Point 💯
The UFC's Heavyweight Division Is So Thin That
The TKO Group Is Willing To Let POATAN Get A Title Shot Without Even Beating Any Of Top Ranked Heavyweights.
Am I living in an alternate universe?
Am I the only one that saw Jan wrestle Alex and had his back the entire first round and Alex defended every submission attempt?
If you go all entertainment you become a "meme", if you go all just sport, not a lot of people will watch, if you get that sweet spot... it's gold. UFC is so good because a lot of the time it hits that nice sweet spot of entertainment and sport on their main cards.
About Poatan vs Jones @4:38: I agree that is not just entertainment, it's a great sweet spot of that AND sport. They are the same age, Jones never lost in the ring and is known, to many, as the GOAT; while Poatan was double champ in Glory, went to the UFC, became double champ and is cleaning the LHW division, where Jones was the king for a long time. Now, both are pretty close to retirement (37 yo), Jones (natural LHW went HW) just walked through Gane in HW and Poatan (natural LHW who could easily go HW) is walking through all LHW so far... it's only natural that a LOT of people want that fight.
Sure, some people dismiss that fight saying that Poatan has no chance, but those people forget how tough Marreta and Reyes were to Jones, some even say that Reyes won that fight; that doesn't mean Poatan will win, but it shows that there is a path for Poatan against Jones.
It doesn’t have to be an ultimatum it can be both same as every other sport.
He has so much cauliflower he could set up shop at a farmers market
The competiton of SPORT is what makes it entertaining. Casuals want to be entertained, the scroll masters. Real fans come for the sport, to watch the best vs the best, and when it happens its never boring.
Some come for the drama or cause they see them talk shit online I mean come on some fighters have fake personas when they're on Camara like wwe stars
Also the great personalities make it entertaining.
@@jamesreynolds7949that's a sport where you see who can beat who if you wanna laugh or be entertained on your own way go watch wwe or kevin heart
Any sports with Umpires/Referees are guaranteed to have scripted moments in the form of good, bad and non calls.
Every time you guys discuss this there are always a ton of pro-UFC excuse-making. The fact of the matter is, in actual sports rankings etc all matter as does winning consistently. The UFC does not take its rankings, the strength of schedule, win streaks and so in into mind when booking big match ups; they think about short term money making. This has not only lowered the integrity of the product since WME was purchased, but made the line between sport and entertainment less obvious to the point that now it is essentially an entertainment sports product, not a sport. It is competitive and not fixed, but winning and winning often doesn't matter
I think this is a great description - each individual fight is legitimate and fighters try to win, but there is no bracket, real ranking, league or division with points for a win, and so there is often very little 'and therefore this guy gets to progress in a measurable way'.
These days the content is so regular... Absolutely love it ❤
As much as I love Poirier, it was unfair for him to get title shot number 3 before Tsarukyan got his shot. Tsarukyan survived Makhachev and recently defeated Oliveira, two things Poirier failed to do.
“ankalaev knocks people dead” and then names 2 bums
It’s a sport, but entertainment is a leading factor in the direction the sport takes. Fighters have to win but also play the politics and lead into the entertainment aspects of it to get opportunities
Of course it's a sport. Two athletes competing against each other to see who comes out on top. Entertainment and success is what makes stars.
If you're selling tickets for people to see a sport, it's both, if you're just playing for the competition and there is nobody paying PPV or tickets it's just a sport not entertainment, quite simple
Both
Just wanna point out that I like these podcasts. I appreciate sensible discussions around MMA. Keep it up, guys!
Competition makes it a sport. Money makes it a business. Both of those things along with the personalities make it entertainment.
The rivalries are very WWE. Like when you see Garry and MVP going back and forth on stage...and then MVP is backstage playing with Garry's baby. Also Conor telling Khabib "it's just business" in the middle of the fight.
Mighty Mouse vs Rodtang is a prime example of a fight that perfectly rides the line between sport and entertainment for me. If the UFC let MMA fighters do more than just MMA it would be so entertaining.
You can tell now some of these are scripted finishes. Fixed fights. Unfortunately as soon as they started showing bets to take on screen. It was over
“Are you not entertained “
There's no sport without the entertainment and there's no entertainment without the sport
Every sport is entertainment if the ufc don’t try to entertain us they will end up as WNBA
wnba is pretty popular now though because of caitlin clark
Dumbest comment.
@@harrywatson2694 lol
@@dilarch. I mean it’s viewerships been skyrocketing it gets 100s of thousands of likes on its socials
Balancing the two is what makes any sport relevant, so both. The thing is that at the end of the day, Dana White and a few others has a say on what happens so its very easy to bend the rules towards entertainment
It’s always about the sport. Some matchups the ufc makes are so they make more money. But eventually the BEST at the sport rise to the top.
It would be a perfect mix if they just did things like a tournament. Once someone enters the top 10 it should be brackets, everything outside can be free reign so you can match the entertaining fighters and big names without compromising the integrity of the sport. The ufc title loses worth every time undeserving fighters get shots, whether people want to admit it or not.
Fighting has always been and always will be the ultimate sport and the ultimate entertainment.
Rigged for entertainment... legal speak keeps liability at bay.
I think this is one of those times we can look at the golden age of boxing for answers. The champion has to defend the title against a mandatory at last once per year and fight whoever he wants after meeting his obligation. The ufc has contenders but no mandatories.a
11:35 Conor beating Aldo is not sport, is the biggest show of spectacle the UFC has ever had. Bro's onto nothing
That was more of an entertainment since aldo didn't get a rematch
The UFC is sports entertainment. It became sports entertainment when Dana started talking about how wins need to be exciting for title shots
For the fighters it's a sport. For the fans it's entertainment.
The sport must be entertaining in order for everyone to make money, which so many people cry about online.
It's one hell of an entertaining sports. The top competitors should be entertaining. It's what we love.
It's "Sports Entertainment", more than ever now with the merger with WWE. The lines are becoming more blurred
Audio engineer: fully mute non speaking mics synced in post (rather than drop levels considerably) or add diffusion to conference rooms next door for whoever is on the phone bc that random words here or there at lower decibels every few sentences right after someone got done speaking got a tad distracting
I think it'd be coherent if they put the merit based matches in the preliminary and made main card room for spectacle. That kinda the defacto breakdown ATM, just formalize it, find a term to market the spectacle fights a la bmf and be transparent in the promo what kinda fight each match up is
I feel like kicking back and having a beer with poirier would be a great time.
It’s a sport where the entertainment value often supersedes
It's entertainment. There's nothing stopping the UFC, for example, from giving CM Punk a title shot. The UFC can also be selective with its match-making to make sure certain guys win and others lose. The UFC also prioritizes 'entertainment' over actual skill and accomplishments. It's why Colby keeps getting title shots, but someone like Belal had to go on a massive winning streak to get one.
That's a serious sport some might lose a part of their bodies because of this sport, there is always excitement and entertainment but it's serious
Next fights:
Volk/Tuporia 2
Islam/Edwards
Jones/Poatan
Whitaker/Strickland
Max/Diamond 2 BMF
now that's entertainment!!
After max can still fight Tuporia
Islam can still fight Arman
Leon can still fight what's his name
And Jones can still fight Stipe
Tom Aspinall just a spectator for all these fights while being sidelined as the interim heavyweight champion???
@@philleotardo1500 of course not Tom fights Alex after he KOs bones. I knew I forgot a fight.
Fuck Islam. Only legit win is against Oliveria. Volk won the first fight
@@Kanekashonthedasheverybody seems to forget about Tom Aspinall like the guy isn’t a problem, a problem that nobody wants any smoke from.
@@philleotardo1500 In my opinion Tom is the future of the HW division. JbJ and Stipe are out the door. Alex is not far behind. So on left the giant Cuban gets way better than he is now. Who will stop Aspinall. Select the old fogies have their little legacy fights and then get out the way
"two things can be true at once" - Ben Shaprio
it's entertainment at this point, they keep proving it time and time again
it's entertainment with how the UFC has been going about doing things lately
but unironically the storylines were better when they treated it as a sport. shit's weak now
I don't understand how it's not a sport? It's an amalgam of several other martial arts which are sports themselves. If esports are "sport", mma is definitely a sport
Of course it's a sport.
If you didn't listen to the video at all...they're specifically talking about UFC and how fighters are paired together, who gets what opportunities etc.
If it's a sport, chito doesn't fight for a title.
DJ had a 13 fight win streak barely loses to Henry then gets kicked out, It's definitely entertainment
I respect the attempt at a transition to the podcast format but....these aren't doing it for me.
As for sport vs spectacle, it's spectacle. You can thank guys like Conor for guys like O'Malley.
I love the UFC cuz I think they have a perfect balance of sport and entertainment. We do see the best fight the best most of the time. But a lot of times we are also seeing stylistic matchups that are entertaining
All Sports are entertainment but not all entertainment is sport. If it requires skill and training to be good than I say it can be deemed a sport. The UFC is both.
The second he used the term “legitimized”, the argument was settled. It’s a sport because if the UFC was entertainment, the BMF title would be MORE legitimate.
It's both but I think it really should be qualified as a "combat" sport. In the same way that golf and football are distinct categories of sport, "sporting"(?) and "contact", MMA is in the combat category.
Bro on the left is always keeping it 💯.... The others tend to say what is expected
It’s not sport it’s combat with conditions.
The only way a sport makes money is by entertaining people
MMA is sport
UFC entertainment similar to WWF because matches are picked based on entertainment value not competition
Professional wrestling is a sport, by Ariel’s definition because it’s athletic and live in front of an audience. That also means that circus acts, improv performances, and theatre can also be considered sports by Ariel’s definition.
The fights are a sport but the business is entertainment/business (goal is to make money for shareholders)
I tend to think the ufc would be more appealing to the fan base if it was a run like a sport with fights based on rankings, etc just lien baseball or football.
Why can’t it be both? Sports is there to entertain the masses.
All sports are entertainment, the main thing that separates combat sports from traditional team sports in that regard is that it's easier to quantify something like baseball or football with statistics. But there are always athletes that are more entertaining but not necessarily that great, and vice versa. There's just more extreme examples in MMA.
It's both. Just like all other sports
The ufc is the pinnacle of combat sports entertainment, they go hand in hand. Pride was huge cuz they did both at its best. 🤷♂️
All professional sport is entertainment because of the realities of how it has to be funded.
This is a sport that's entertaining to say the least
If fishing, golf, and driving a car can be considered sport how is MMA not?
It has to be entertaining, but it is a sport first and should be treated as such. I find it troubling that dangerous sports are treated so casualy. It is only a matter of time before a freak fighter or influencer dies. Imagine motorsport between guys without licences or training but a lot of insta followers.
It’s definitely got more entertainment DNA than any other professional sport. You’re not gonna see the Yankees vs The Red Sox in the playoffs just cause of they’re rivals. Both have to earn that spot.