Is it right for promoters to not push winning fighters because they are viewed as boring?
Published by Zach Arnold on July 22nd, 2010 in Current Events

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When UFC signed former Strikeforce Middleweight champion Jake Shields to a contract late last week, the reaction in the media that writes about MMA was extremely curious, if not downright demeaning.

Shields, one of the best 170-pound fighters in the game, is being talked about as if he’s the redheaded stepchild that UFC should have never bothered touching. “He’s boring” and “his style sucks” and “he’s a ratings killer” were all missiles lobbied towards Shields’ way — and that’s just from writer Dave Meltzer. I don’t know if Jake tried to run over Dave’s dog, but it’s hard to fathom how UFC’s big signing is something that should be completely crapped upon.

In a recent radio interview on Yahoo Sports, Dave Meltzer noted that Shields could become popular but right now he’s not.

“I mean the thing is that if you become a UFC champion, you’re going to eventually become marketable. I mean, that’s just the thing of being in the UFC. … Lyoto Machida, at first, wasn’t marketable but you know he won so many fights that he became marketable but right off the bat? No. I think it’s going to take some, you know I don’t think that he was that marketable coming off of the CBS exposure even though he won a lot of fights on Strikeforce. The people really didn’t take to him. So… if it wins his fights, he’ll be a star, but I don’t think he’s walking in like say someone like Fedor would walk in or someone else you know would walk in and is already a ready-made star.”

Shields had the unfortunate task of fighting in a promotion (Strikeforce) that didn’t allow the usage of elbows on the ground. The Unified Rules allow elbows, but Strikeforce decided against it. In short, it crimped Jake’s fighting style and he ended up long, tedious wars against Mayhem Miller and Dan Henderson. Both of those men are pretty good fighters, last time I checked.

In a profession in which everyone wants to tout it as a sport, I’ve been frankly amazed at the media’s constant beating of the drum about what a boring guy Shields is. I’m not defending some of his boring fights, but he’s been immediately lumped in with the likes of Yushin Okami and Jon Fitch. If it wasn’t for Chael Sonnen beating Okami, right now we’d be having a discussion on why UFC is scared to book Okami in a title fight against GSP. However, they may very well face that type of problem if Jon Fitch beats Thiago Alves in Oakland on August 7th. Fitch, who got his clock cleaned by St. Pierre in Minneapolis, is not the kind of guy with the finishing skill to beat GSP and a re-match would be a hard sell. Shields, Fitch, and Okami are all basically being comparmentalized in the ranks of UFC as the ‘boring guys’ who you can’t put in a primetime slot.

UFC is entertainment, but it also proclaims to be a sport. So, which is it, guys? And please don’t tell me that you’re going to go with the ‘sports entertainment’ route that WWE claims, because that would obnoxious as hell to do.

In real sports, sometimes the boring guys dominate and get pushed at the top. Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs didn’t light anyone’s world on fire when they were NBA champions, but their games were still telecasted because, hey, it’s the NBA Finals. The New Jersey Devils had the infamous ‘neutral zone trap’ that put people to sleep but ABC & ESPN still aired those Stanley Cup Finals. Baseball has had the sabremetric, computer-dominated Tampa Bay Rays in the last couple of years in the playoffs and the ratings sucked but nobody said that they didn’t deserve to be there because ‘they’re a boring small-market team.” Sometimes in sports, you have to treat the industry the way you actually promote it.

The pro-wrestling crossover in the media covering Mixed Martial Arts is both good and bad. It’s good because you get a more accurate depiction of what draws money and what doesn’t. But it’s also bad because this is a real sport and there are some real drawbacks to promoting a sport that you can’t simply can’t manipulate or paper over unless you want to start rigging finishes. (Which is against the law.) In recent comments made on the Observer web site, Dave Meltzer came very close to drawing that line:

“They’d better match him with a good stand-up fighter with no takedown defense or submission defense. At least then you know the match will be over quickly. If not, there is a lesson already out there about putting him on live TV.

“Honestly, the less they show of him the better. You showcase people to their strengths and hide their weaknesses. You look at that for every person and then expose them accordingly. Either a guy with no sub defense and takedown defense, or hide him on the undercards where nobody can see him except the local ticket buyers, preferably on a Vegas show where nobody shows up until late. Having people sleep through Jon Fitch fights does less to make them want to see him against GSP again. However, if they never saw those fights, and marketed a 15 fight winning streak and had people talk him up, they wouldn’t know enough to not want to see him.

“they should talk about his win streak, have other fighters talk about him, never air him on television (unless they sign Melvin Manhoef) and show him training. The thing is, GSP will get him over on promos but if people actually saw him fight, they won’t believe GSP when he talks about what a threat he is.”

In the end, UFC booked Shields for his debut fight for the promotion against Martin Kampmann, who is a really good test for Shields. If he can stuff Jake’s takedown attempts and keep the fight standing, it will be a long night for Jake.

Since Meltzer’s initial statements, he has softened his tone as far as what UFC should do with Jake Shields. However, the true feelings are there in those initial statements. Hide a Top 5 Welterweight on dark matches? Limit his exposure to fans? Could you imagine David Stern or Bud Selig or Roger Goodell saying that about any of their franchises or star acquisitions? Not a chance. Sometimes, reality gets in the way of having a perfectly cosmetic world and this is a lesson that some of the writers covering Mixed Martial Arts need to learn.