Daily Poll March 8th: What currently is the biggest problem in MMA?

Other = Dana White

Your a meat head.

Dana in the sense that he doesn't pay the fighters what they're due

MMA would be nowhere near what it is today if it wasnt for him and the UFC...

You think that because you're not actually an MMA fan.

the other problem is that there r fat athletes like fedor in the sport!

imitating u know what i mean.........

the problem of mma is that these other site are immating lowkick.com

and taking it's prop's away from them cuz they should be voted #1 for best mma webite for 2009, but no they rigged the votes. just like bush's second run @ president. now give me my sharp points. cuz even if i say somthing -negitive about ur favorite fighter. it's only right to hit sharp cuz you know i'm right. a 100% of the time i'm right (lol)

so do the right thing this year and vote lowkick.com for best mma website in 2010. thank you and have a nice day



this message has been certifide and pass by the membrs of the marijuana party

u do realise there are loads of undisclosed payments/bonuses that aren't shown to the media?

you know they make money from sponsers...alot of money

if they are a big name in the buisness. and these guys earn the most in the ufc. a unknown fighter gets a small paycheck and maybe he gets some sponsoring money, but its still not a fair deal.

yeah the big big names!

were talking about the top 5 on each division!

thats only 25 fighters in the entire UFC!



and probably the only ones who make a lot a lot are only the champs

GSP , BJ , ANDERSON , BROCK



and all the rest just make the amount to keep training!



theres really no main problem MMA is the fastest growing sport in the world!



just need more big organizations ! the UFC can cover the entire world!

the UFC can't cover the entire wolrd!

sorry



i mean theres only the UFC and strikeforce in the u.s

and DREAM in japan!



it needs to be more internatinal also!



not just brazilians , americans and japenneses!

other=roids

scoring system! but olympic recognition would be nice

it will neva b recognised by te olympics unfortunately

All controlled through the UFC.

im surprised FEDOR NOT IN THE UFC wasnt an option

Blood sport stigma, no doubt. It's the thing that closes the doors to other things, even on the list, such as sanctioning, olympic recognition etc.

The thing is that people that dont watch any sort of MMA think is that these guys... and gals, are just animals that want to make money beating people up. What they dont realize is that a lot of these guys use to play football, baseball, wrestling, and other sports in college while they were getting degrees. Or they were in the military that protected them and their rights.



A whole lot of these guys are unbelievably intelligent and do this because they love the sport and the competition. Not because they are blood thirsy monsters. With the exception of a few fighters... like Tank Abbott lol.

Totally agree. This idea of "human **** fighting" needs to absolved. This needs to come from educating the public, AND by keeping the sport itself in check. For example, if anyone remembers Tito's entrance for one of the Shamrock fights - it was very WWE'ish and really makes the sport look like a joke. Thankfully, that kinda crap is not allowed by Dana.

Yes I agree, it's the blood stigma more than scoring. How on earth can scoring be so high up or even there in the 1st place?



People see it as barbaric. The same people who go to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre & Saw in the cinema!!! They're the problem. :o)



It's probably the oldest sport in the world, well fighting anyway. Isn't MMA fighting?



We're all getting too politically correct & soft.



In the famous words of John McCarthy "Let's get it on!!!"

And who hell pressed "lack of competition"? Go to your local mma gym and test the lack of competition yourselves and then make up your minds.

They can't get off their couches!!! :oD

I think the biggest problem is the division caused by organizations.

blood sport sigma for sure, people who are uneducated about mma immediatly label mma as a blood sport!

injuries

blood sport for sure, i am from germany and people here think fighters are dying in the cage..

Wow! That's obscene!



More boxers have probably died in the ring (or soon after) than any other sport in the world



That's the hater propaganda for you!

It's a combination of all of those things.

i couldnt see freak fights as one of the choices. i think it should be. som e of them are embarassing

blood sport a problem? wen BJ Penn elbowed Stevenson in the forehead he bled like a tap tht was cool as fuk

The scoring systems has screwed up & cost several fighters wins or even belts.

Blood Sport. People who have never seen a MMA fight assume that is a blood sport when someone gets a cut.

i think the scoring system, if we in america used a system like the japanesse to scoring then Rua would be champ but under the USA ten point must system he lost a close point battle. also we should have a "yellow card" option for the ref not a loss of money but a point deduction or something.



i don't really think the blood sport thing is really that big a issue, their are always going to be people who protest combat sports. most everyone i know does not watch MMA but the vast majority are not against its existence, tho the people i do know who are against its existence are also against the existence of boxing. the portrail of MMA in the media is often given from a boxing rep or a conservative politician. note that in the aussie UFC event recently that the only news outlet that wrote a negative peice was the conservative biased paper.



fact is MMA is on ESPN as long as the organizations keep the fights clean and legit MMA will strive on like Boxing. MMA was getting big internationally before it really started getting big in the US. even if it did take a fall back in the US it would only mean that the focus would be back on japan.



with the global economy in the poor state it is in, i do not think competition is something to worry about. less work means more guys are gonna be willing to train up and enter the cage just to get a pay check. while most will of course be nothing special it will increase the odds of random natural talent finding the sport similar to Rampage's entry into the sport.

Some fair points made but you can be deducted points for a foul in most if not all MMA organisations.



1 point is deducted at the discretion of the referee after warnings about a foul or if a foul is blatantly committed.



You can be deducted a point if you keep grabbing the cage, if you use illegal strikes, even if you shoot your mouth off in the cage under UFC rules.



So the point deduction is clearly there. I don't feel it's used enough though.

well the yellow card rule was a punishment for inactivity, which the UFC doesn't punish a fighter for. i would say that the UFC would be much better off if they had the yellow card rule, get a point deducted for stalling or something. so many fights the UFC are made boring by a fighter who likes to takedown a fighter and simply punch or attempt to punch every few moments in order to simply keep the fight down even tho they are really doing nothing but trying to win off of takedown points.

obviously the refs and the scoring system.

the only really bad ref is mazagatti, the others are quite good but i do agree with the scoring system, everyone sees the obvious outcome and it goes the other way

btw i don't see the point between the picture of gsp-serra 1 and mma problems,pretty odd.

The point is that despite all the problems, there are still many things you can love in MMA.

Unified rules. the scoring system is always going to have problems, there is no perfect way to score a fight with as many variables as MMA has. the scoring system could be improved, but a global unified rules would make cross cultural MMA productions much easier to swallow and the Unified rules would have to have something in their clauses about substance abuse.



but in the end the big arguments come of cage v ring in which cage is pretty much winning the day as even dream is starting to switch over, slowly but surely they will completely faze out the ring, and if dream did it, SRC would follow. the only problem with that is the Dynimite end of the year production which they work with K1, but i dont see why they couldnt set up 2 rings or just have the K1 fighters fight in a cage instead (wouldnt really change K1 that much).



and the second major thing is the soccer kicks (aka knees and kicks to a downed opponent within 15 kilos weight range) or downward elbows, mostly on a down opponent. both have their down sides, and both have their upsides. personally i would love to see the return of the soccer kicks and flying stomps, but i just dont see that going over so well in the US, but under the same reasoning, i dont see allowing the elbows in Japan either. so were in a pickle here.



either way unifying the rules would be best, under this we could have a unified scoring system. personally i like the Japanese scoring system, but its got a lot of issues on how a fighter finishes the fight and how exciting he was rather than how technical he was, where as the US scoring system has problems with giving rounds 10-9 rather than 10-10 and 10-8 like some rounds should be because of the stigma of hating ties in the US (probably a major reason soccer hasnt caught on either) it also has issues of when the judges are only boxing judges they score things differently as well as the way they determine who got the round... but i guess thats why their called judges. IMHO the best fix for this is just education. but unifying the rules, possibly have a round by round 10 point must system and then have a 10-9 "final" score system as to who you thought did more for the fight as a whole like the japanese system. there for you have 40 points for non title fights and 60 points for title fights. just a thought.

your scoring system would end in tons of draws because the outcome could end in 20-20... 30-30 nice thoughts tho but it would end up having even more controversial decisions

Think about it, even though i wouldnt say Dana White is the biggest problem, hes helped bring MMA to the masses and done alot of good BUT i believe co promotion is the way forward and Dana is all for the UFC with no rivals. It pisses me off when people dont call the sport 'MMA' but call it 'UFC' I think Dana wants the world to think the UFC is begining and the end of MMA.

There's a lot of truth in what you say.



Dana has done a lot for MMA (Mainly UFC, understandably) by getting it out to the masses & on to PPV & ESPN.



The problem is, although he's done a lot to promote MMA, he wants it to be called UFC. The brand is what he wants.



Most people I know who know guys in the workplace or who know friends of friends etc.. involved in MMA or that fight in MMA call them .......... UFC FIGHTERS!!!



I always correct them & tell them that UFC is the biggest MMA organisation but don't confuse it with other MMA organisations.



I suppose it's like someone asking for a can of coke, when they really mean almost any can of soda or soft drink will do!

Its the judges!

I voted scoring system, but that's only half the problem, it's boxing judges who don't have a clue how to score MMA.

i would say scoring system but i dont like the majority of fights that go to the judges so i have to say some of theses damn referees are really bad

They all need work but once MMA isn't generally seen as a blood sport and more of a legitimate sport then it will eventually become one of the biggest sports in the world. Hopefully there will be many more UFC overseas events in the future helping to spread the sport and gain talent.

-Celebrity plays too a big part in who gets to fight for the belt.

-I think if people get points for takedowns, they should get points for nullifying takedowns too. The rules are a bit slanted towards offensive action, but defence takes skill too.

- Dana should expand his vocabulary beyond the word f***, I mean he's the public face of the buisness he should act like it. Also stop talking sh** about fighters that aren't in the ufc.

Well ! The fact that scoring systems only about 15% preventing it to develop even faster ..just because of blood sport-Injuried and due to anti-Human ****fighter etc. some of Governors voted to againt it .

I loved MMA and I have no problem at all.

The judges need to use a 100 point scoring system as opposed to a 10. There should be 10 judges, sitting in a video trailer surrounded by big plasma monitors that they can control. Rewind, slow-mo, change angles. etc. They should be able to over-rule point deductions or award point deductions. etc.

I think that since there are no free agent fighters that a lot of fights the fans want to see don't happen for years and years, and sometimes not at all. 1 fight contracts in any organization you choose would be super exciting all of the time and there would be great fights in all organizations all the time. But it will never work that way.

Yeah, it would be the same as co-promotion, it just simply breeds corruption and is one of the main factors in the downfall of boxing.

NO ONE would be saying "the scoring system" if it wasnt for the one fight between machida and rua. I think this issue is blown way out of proportion. ANY system that uses human beings as scoring systems is gonna have intrinsic flaws.

There have been soooo many bad calls. So many absolutely inexcusable scores.

they should bring in more weight divisions at the moment there is just lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, lightheavy and heavyweight why not bring in crusierweight and a few more weight divisions

To be honest I think the weights are nicely spaced out.



Boxing weights are far too close together.



It seems easy for many of the MMA fighters to drop or go up a weight.



I think the only weight division missing from UFC for example is Super Heavyweight.



Lesnar for example would never have to cut weight. The guy walks around above 280Lbs, could be 300Lbs actually!!!



There are not too many good fighters at this weight but it would draw huge crowds. All those freakishly huge guys that fought in Pride could be in the octagon.



Bob Sapp might not be a great fighter but if he catches anyone with a punch or a clumsy forearm for that matter, they're going down.



Another thing related to weight I suppose, imagine an open weight championship once a year like they had in Pride!!!!!



Awesome!

I forgot to add, female fighters too.



Probably need 125-135-145 weight classes for that.



Maybe a featherweight class for the guys too but BJ might just cut some more weight & take that so bad idea ;o)

i think a potential problem for mma is eye-pokes.. if somoene loses their eye it could have some bad reprocussons for the sport..

i think there is alot more that could be fixed so certain things dont happen. but there are still alot of haters out there pro mma is banned from washington but amature is aloud its pathetic the scoring system could be alot better

everyones who commented a got a good opinion and good points made

Clearly injuries are a huge problem in mma, they are costing fights, frustrating the fans and promotions both. Should be up there, also the scoring system or more like the inability of the judges to use the scoring system correctly.

I don't think that takedowns and ground control, w/out causing any damage or progressing position should be worth as much as it is... also making regulation fights 5X5 minute rounds and then title fights 7X5 minute rounds

yah i know there would be long fights but alot of the guys i feel just decision out the 15 minutes just for the W i think there would be more finishes so there wouldnt be as many questions

Where's the option "Fedor nuthuggers"? And Dana sorta treats the fighters like they are slaves...not exactly a big motivation to do it for a living when someone gets paid peanuts after working their ass off like that, then Dana doesn't like the way they foguht and they get canned.



Other than that, general lack of knowledge and people thinking the fighting is much more brutal than it actually is

Scoring system no doubt, I want the Pride scoring system where you just score the fight as a whole.

ignored eye pokes and against the fence groin shots messed up a lot o fights outcome I cant be the only person that noticed that they need to PAY ATTENTION to instant replay n overide punk ass referees