UFC on FOX: 64 Seconds Wasn't Enough to Display the Greatness of MMA

I sat watching the UFC on FOX event with three friends last night, two of which are casual fans and another who decided to root for Dos Santos after watching his video package before the fight.

Naturally, I was asked a plethora of questions before the fight.

“Who is going to win?”

“Does Dos Santos really hit that hard?”

“Why are they even fighting, Velasquez beat BROCK LESNAR?”

After a solid half hour of build up that legitimately got a girl who had seen a total of about five fights prior interested, the fight was under way.

And in 64 seconds, it was over.

The reaction of those around ranged from shocked to outraged, but no one in the room looked pleased with the result.

The UFC had successfully managed to grab a group of random people, turned them into fans and turned them off of the sport, all in less than an hour.

You can’t completely blame the UFC though, after all, they have no control of the fights once they start, but why didn’t they put another fight on TV?

I realize that this was supposed to be a showcase fight as a flashback to the heyday of boxing, but the organization should have known better than to throw two hard-hitting heavyweights in the only fight on the card.

If the Clay Guida and Ben Henderson fight would have been on TV, it would have given fans a greater understanding of the sport and likely left them with less of a bitter taste in their mouths.

The fact that the UFC was brave enough to put a guaranteed money-making fight on free TV shows their commitment to the sport, and it was a damn good fight to open their deal with FOX, but they should have had the foresight to see that new fans had the potential to be disappointed. 

This sport is so much more than a two guys walking in and someone getting knocked out in seconds, but sadly. the world didn't get to see that last night. 

The UFC had a pretty decent debut on network TV, but hopefully next time fans will really see what the sport is all about.