A while ago I wrote about the uselessness of accusing the fighters of not fighting in an exciting way or not trying to finish fights. I said that the rules encourage safe fighting and that as long as the rules would not change safe fighting will continue to be a significant part of the sport.
The UFC wants to be sanctioned and that’s why they accept the Unified Rules of MMA, with their 10-point must system. I believe the UFC are now big enough and strong enough to be able to influence these rules if they wanted to, but that’s another matter. The important thing now is that they are bound by these rules and must follow them.
The problem that they now face is how to avoid the slow but steady decline of fighters to point-fighting while adhering to the same set of rules and without influencing the judges. The way Dana White has chosen to do this is by cutting any fighter who seems to be fighting safely, even when they are considered among the best in the world.
It started with the surprising release of Jon Fitch, followed by that of Yushin Okami, the lack of interest in signing Ben Askren, and now the release of Jake Shields.
The UFC cannot affect the rules but they can control the fighters, and they try to make them fight excitingly by keeping only those who bring the action, and threatening to cut those who don’t.
There is a lot of criticism surrounding this strategy. It is said that MMA is a sport, while the UFC is becoming a spectacle. Instead of trying to find who the best fighters in the world are, they are just trying to put on crowd-pleasing fights and make money.
[#4 LHW] 
[#10 LHW] 
[#9 LW] 
[#14 LW] 
[#4 W105] 
[#20 W105] 
