Getty Images The UFC is less than a week away from its primetime debut on FOX. The organization’s popularity exploded after the finale of the first Ultimate Fighter season, and they’re hoping the same thing will happen following Saturday’s main event — a heavyweight title fight between champion Cain Velasquez (9-0) and challenger Junior dos Santos (13-1). It seems to be the perfect fight to lead off with, but it’s not stars and champions that will earn the UFC a larger fan base.
The UFC has never relied on its main events alone. They learned that lesson from boxing. A UFC card is a deep card. A supposedly “weak on paper” UFC card is still a deep card. That’s been a key to their success.
This new group of fans will at some point tune in to see a highly promoted, big fight between top contenders. They’ll see three or four other fights that will be equally as exciting and stick in their memory. They’ll learn that the product is reliable — there are dud fights, but not dud nights.
UFC 138 on Saturday was the perfect example: Mark Munoz vs. Chris Leben, two fairly well known names and two guys who could put themselves into contention with a win. The fight lived up to its main event slot (Munoz winning) but if it’s the only one you watched, you missed out.
Terry Etim kicked off the main card and television broadcast with an explosive submission victory over Eddie Faaloloto. Etim was on his way to making a name for himself a couple years ago before some injury setbacks. The casual fan may or may not have heard of him, but they’ll remember this one. His strikes looked quick and crisp before he sank in a guillotine choke that was so tight it stopped Faaloloto mid-slam and had him tapping by the time they reached the ground.
Anthony Perosh, hardly a big name, followed with his second straight win in the UFC. He dominated round two with his ground and pound, while constantly looking for and eventually finding a fight-ending choke.
There were vicious strikes followed by submissions by Thiago Alves and Renan Barao in their wins on Saturday, and a TKO win by Che Mills just 40 seconds into round one on the undercard, and a back-and-forth tactical match between John Maguire and Justin Edwards, also on the undercard. You won’t find these guys on any top 10 pound-for-pound list, and it doesn’t matter.
UFC 138 wasn’t a one-fight, hit-or-miss event. The main event could have been terrible; the event would still have been fantastic. This is what will draw in new fans. Any sport, any organization, can have a great event now and then. What’s more important is consistency and reliability. The Super Bowl is huge, but it’s the strength of each weekly schedule that carries the NFL and makes it as great as it is. I expect Saturday’s championship fight to be thrilling, but it won’t make or break anything. It’s putting out a product that fans know they’ll enjoy each time regardless of who’s fighting or who’s not, or what the main event is, and they’ve done that.
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Tim Gilmour is a sports reporter and author of the humor blog LetMeThinkForYou.com. His column appears on Tuesday. For more NBCSports.com MMA coverage, click here.
