UFC 142: Brazil-Centric Card Will Fail to Captivate American Viewers

UFC 142 will take place on Saturday night from an exotic locale at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The card is quite interesting as every fight will feature at least one Brazilian fighter. While that may be exciting for the live crowd, it certainly won't draw in American viewers.

That isn't to say that UFC 142 won't be exciting, but there is nothing huge that is going to get people talking. Hardcore fans of UFC are going to watch regardless of who is fighting, but in order to draw in fringe fans, a big-name guy like Jon Jones or the newly-retired Brock Lesnar is a must.

Even if a superstar isn't on the card, there should at least be a marketable American. It most definitely isn't impossible for American viewers to enjoy non-American fighters, but fringe followers of the sport generally like to root for somebody of the same nationality.

That isn't only a UFC thing either, though, as people tend to be nationalistic and like to root for their countrymen in basically any sport.

American Chad Mendes will face Brazilian Jose Aldo for the UFC Featherweight Championship in the main event, and while it would be a great story if Mendes could win in a hostile environment, he isn't a well-known fighter who is easy to get behind.

I understand what UFC was trying to do with this card, as they clearly want to expand the sport's popularity well beyond the United States, but at the same time they have to remember who their core audience truly is.

Putting more Brazilians on the card than usual is perfectly acceptable because of the venue, but to make sure that there is at least one in every match is overkill. It obviously wasn't a coincidence as I can't recall another card in the company's history that had such an unbalanced ratio.

I'm not saying that an American needs to be in every fight or that Americans are more deserving of being on the card than Brazilians, but if the main goal is to market the sport to the United States, then it only makes sense to Americanize the card. That is something that clearly wasn't taken into account when putting together UFC 142.