It's Official: UFC Fans Fueling Fictitious MMA War!

After digesting everything that I witnessed last week from EliteXC, I realized I needed some perspective. I mean, I just saw MMA's biggest hype machine disposed of in less than 20 seconds by a man dubbed a "UFC reject."

I then proceeded to browse every message board from the majority of the reputable MMA websites. What I found was disturbing. 

The majority of the posters on all sites screamed with what I can only imagine as ear-deafening excitement. This got me thinking, how did all of the hype originate? More importantly, it continued to pick up steam similar to the phenomenon that has intellectually sound Americans using G.W. catchphrases in every day dialect (you know who you are).

I went back in time on the message boards as many as 12 months in some cases, and this is what I found. Most of the posters originally tied to the "Bimbo" hype were, in fact, UFC loyalists. 

It's human nature—heck, it's my nature—to hope for a worthy adversary. I am like most of you; I'm an MMA fan, first and foremost. I’ll admit some of that went out the window when Pride ceased to exist.

For me, life after Pride has consisted of primarily the UFC. Don't get me wrong, I watch the indie shows—HDnet, EliteXC, Dream, Affliction, etc. But I want you to ask yourself, do you get that same feeling of anticipation and excitement from any promotion other than the UFC? More recently, WEC has put some exciting television on, but it just can’t match the type of fighters the UFC has. 

At this point in my life, I liken the UFC to "mom's home cooking"—everything else just isn't the same. Let's face it: The other promotions offer varying degrees of satisfaction. Some of them are merely fast food, while others are fine meals. They are simply not "mother's comfort food."

Getting back to my original point, we like competition. We, as fans, feel like it keeps Dana and the boys on their toes. We want a perceived war because we want the satisfaction that comes with winning. Therefore, we create a fictitious war that really doesn’t exist. 

At the end of the day, fans stand nothing to gain if the UFC was to lose ground to any inferior promotion. MMA fans realize that. We will continue to eat to avoid the hunger, but we will always look forward with anticipation to the real prize, mom's old-fashioned home cooking.