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[rivethead]

Originally Posted by AnchorPunch

Part of building a brand is building a narrative. Creating a story and persons that people can engage with. It is well established that a sense of fair play is critical to positive engagement. Clear contenders, earning title shots: it's critical to establishing "fair" conduct and building a brand that people can engage with, stand by, and which resonate with their other basic human need for equity.

QFT.
I've been asking for years for zuffa to begin actively working to educate the audience, instead of simply catering to the lowest common denomenator. Right now, zuffa is content to milk the demographic that finds wwe interesting/entertaining and just wants to see guys "stand in the pocket and bang till someone falls over." Short term gain.

If they'd worked to make TUF interesting, to actually focus on the fighters families and backgrounds, if they got professional trainers instead of celebrity fighters to coach and actually told the backstory of how important MMA is to people's lives, they wouldn't get the numbers that they're getting now, but they'd end up with a better educated audience. I'm a firm believer in occasionally making short term sacrifices for long-term gain.

Originally Posted by rampage9712

Odd... Jones said similar things when he was first asked about fighting Chael... He then was criticized for "ducking" Chael and "trying to pick who he fights"... We'll there you go, you got the fight you were crying about Jones turning down in the first place...

Well, there you go, steadfastly refusing to understand or acknowledge that there is an enormous difference between a replacement fight in an emergency situation and the current situation. The two are simply not comparable.

Not to mention that the backlash against Jones for not taking the fight wasn't nearly as bad as you remember it. The backlash against Jones were for the stupid shit he said in an attempt to rationalize not taking the fight.

Originally Posted by JPeezy

This is the old "no publicity is bad publicity" argument. I suppose there is some truth to that.

If you're trying to get noticed and you don't care how, that works. If you're looking for respect--and MMA is clearly at a point where they need respect to get licensed in NY and other states--it does not apply.

Originally Posted by rampage9712

True... but Jones was not training for Sonnen... His last week is devoted to cutting weight and doing media obligations... How fair was it to expect that of him...

This is a great argument for same day weigh-ins, if I've ever heard one.

The resulting backlash from that, is what created this fight...

No. You're drinking the kool-aide. The desperation for TUF not to turn a dime into a quarter is what prompted this fight.

Jones should have easily beaten Chael... but why risk it...

Why not?

Legacies aren't only made out of numbers. They're often by irrational decisions that focus on heart, not checkbooks. Even if Jones had lost, he'd still get paid, he probably could have come out a hero even in failure, and he's a 90% lock to beat sonnen in a rematch.

I don't believe the risk is as awful/terrible as people think it was.


EDIT, this was awesome:

Originally Posted by Sniggles

It is a waste of time trying to explain that to Rampage.

rh