UFC 100 Final Wrap: Waving Goodbye to the Mainstream Media, MMA Snobs

In a lot of ways, UFC 100 was like a big neighborhood block party. People of all types stopped by and a lot of familiar friends had a great time catching up and enjoying the culmination of the build for the largest-pushed, largest-promoted, and most-written-about MMA event we've ever seen.

But then, those people from a couple streets away dropped by as they had heard about our parties before and wanted to see what the commotion was all about. Ultimately, though, most of them decided that our street and its inhabitants weren't up to their standards and left, acting snooty and indignant as they drove away to the safety of their country club world.

(Meanwhile, we were all having a great time and walking around with lampshades on our heads with no pants on. That might have just been me, though.)

Saturday night's massive production in Las Vegas was destined to be THE event that brought in the mainstream fans and media and enticed them to stay in our lil' MMA neighborhood for good—the same sprawling and thriving block that was once filled with dilapidated houses and left for demolition.

But the Sunday after UFC 100—when the rest of us were picking up the empty cups and trying to figure out who put burn marks in the carpet—the people from the other neighborhood were lobbing grenades into ours and unfortunately decided to drag some of our own into their sad, little delusional world.

And while writers like T.J. Simers from the LA Times may have decided the good ship UFC wasn't deserving of their boarding (surely more detractors will spring up Monday), what is saddening is the amount of existing MMA fans/writers that turned against the product based on what occurred Saturday with Brock Lesnar's post-fight comments and, to a lesser extent, the final blow Dan Henderson landed on a knocked-out Michael Bisping.

First, to address the mainstream press who decided that they couldn't stomach MMA or made it oh-so-clear they couldn't understand what the hype was about.

ESPN began covering the sport in surprising earnest (especially online) within the last few years and have added big fight results to its televised bottom line scroller, helping fuel the "Should we be covering this?" question in newsrooms throughout the country.

But in the continuing young vs. old battle of new media vs. old media, the gray-haired and predominantly male sports editors that grew up with "prize-fighting" began to fight back and failed to bother in trying to comprehend this rushing tide of water that was filling in the cracks of today's professional sports scene.

The ones that got it and didn't pass judgment (notably ESPN and Yahoo!) have benefited, while the others just look on and shake their heads in disbelief, content with sticking with what is safe: baseball, golf, NASCAR, football and everything else that is established with the occasional dash of PTI-worthy controversy.

If you thought they suddenly were going to be swayed by an event just because it had three digits and a lot of hype, you were sadly mistaken. That segment of the sports media population had already made up their minds and nothing that happened Saturday was going to change that. Those already on the MMA side of the fence were hanging out with the rest of us at the party, being sneered at through the fence by the angry haters.

But it seems to be those on the fence that too many people in our business are concerned about, especially with regards to Lesnar. If someone got turned off by what Lesnar said post-fight, then they probably weren't going to stick with MMA anyway. There was nothing he said in the ring that you don't hear in similar fashion from any number of athletes on a weekly basis. But because it was during the biggest event at UFC history, that made it worse? C'mon now.

I don't think last night was going to make someone a new UFC fan. It might spark their interest a bit more, but it's the next event and the next one after that which will make the difference. The big question is whether those first-time UFC fans that tuned in got hooked enough to want to sample more of the product.

Top to bottom, I can't fully answer whether UFC 100 did the trick but I can confidently say that it didn't do anything to detract someone away from doing so. The numbers in the next six months (buyrates and Spike ratings for UFN 19 and The Ultimate Fighter 10 season) will tell a lot about how well 100 worked in that respect.

So as a final sendoff to those mainstream media folks who sampled the product and turned their noses up, I simply say this: good riddance. The rest of us didn't want you in our neighborhood anyway.

Now to turn attention to my fellow writers, bloggers and radio hosts in the MMA business that so eloquently decided to take a dump on the UFC and especially the new unified UFC Heavyweight Champion today.

Seriously, just stop.

Stop being so pretentious and arrogant and portraying the UFC as some sort of opera that was suddenly crashed by vandals and ogres. It's a violent sport with violent men that are fueled by testosterone, aggression and money. It's a god damn wonder that things are as civil and sane as they are now.

Stop acting like you're a disappointed dad and stand up for the sport that brought you to the dance to begin with. Now isn't the time to be embarrassed and to act like a morality shepard guiding us along to the green fields of widespread acceptance. Like Dennis Green once said, "They are who we thought they were."

There was no golden opportunity missed last night, no TV deal or sponsorship opportunity or big revenue stream that suddenly dried up because of the results. It was a fun night that brought in an Octagon-load of money and likely between 1.2 - 1.5 million PPV buys—shattering the previous UFC records. 15 of the top 100 Google searches Sunday were UFC/MMA-related and UFC 100 was the top-trending topic Saturday on Twitter. People were into this, big-time.

Just because you're inside the business doesn't mean that your criticism is suddenly going to make the outside world think any differently. The only people you're going to gain favor with is fellow MMA/UFC haters and if that's your main operative, then have a great time doing it. The rest of us will do just fine without you.

Warts and all, the UFC is a major part of today's landscape and while it may never get the notoriety of the World Series or the Super Bowl, that's fine with myself and the rest of our growing neighborhood we have here.

As long as I have the opportunity to watch stacked PPV cards, free fights on Spike and Versus, the emerging Strikeforce product on Showtime AND the chance to read great reporting and great commentating about it all, I'm a happy guy and I don't think I'm alone.

Now, get off our street.

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Josh Nason—josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com]—has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. He has been a contributor to Fight Magazine since January 2009 and Bleacher Report since 2008.