Steenalized Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 That's true to a degree, but winning and personality are still the biggest draws in boxing. Mayweather is the best example of that, though I'd very much argue he isn't a boring fighter and has had lots of exciting fights, even the one-sided ones. Arturo Gatti became something of a draw thanks to his extremely exciting style, but he couldn't hold a candle to Floyd as a draw or a boxer. Wlad Klitschko is huge in most of the world despite a "boring" style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 I just don't think I'd lead with it in my publication's evaluation/recap of the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 Style tends to affect ratings in fighting sports in a way it doesn't for something like soccer. If Jose Mourinho sets his team out defensively and spoils the match people discuss it, but they will still tune in for the second leg. If you are watching a game where you are routing for one of the two teams then I agree. But if not then entertainment (or lack of) is an import factor if you switch channels / do something else or continue watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted April 24, 2014 Report Share Posted April 24, 2014 People do it with legit sports all the time. A game might be termed an "instant classic" or a "great game" or whatever, or people will talk about how sloppy the play was with turnovers and errors and bad playcalling/coaching, mental mistakes etc. etc. A low scoring baseball game could be considered an exciting pitchers duel with great defensive, or two inept offenses shitting the bed in a boring display. Team sports as a spectator event always get judged subjectively like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 On some level, I do wish that he tossed star ratings at MMA matches. It would have more value at this point than the wrestling ones: when I get my Mom the UFC box set each Christmas, I try to remember which quality matches from TV (largely PPV Prelimes, but also the Fuel shows she misses) were hot fights to put the dvd in. I guess I should keep a running list during the year... but star ratings would be useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 On some level, I do wish that he tossed star ratings at MMA matches. It would have more value at this point than the wrestling ones: when I get my Mom the UFC box set each Christmas, I try to remember which quality matches from TV (largely PPV Prelimes, but also the Fuel shows she misses) were hot fights to put the dvd in. I guess I should keep a running list during the year... but star ratings would be useful. The solution to that conundrum is to wait for the best of the year Blu-Ray set (the DVDs since 2011 only have the highlight special) instead of buying the annual Ultimate Fight Collection box. You'll get the very best fights of the year, including the bests prelims. There are always omissions (but usually stuff like "Well, they can't put on everything from Fight for the Troops...") and title fights are favored when they shouldn't be (Cain-JDS 3 is not something I ever need to spend half an hour on again), but it's generally a nice set with all of the must-see fights of the year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Am I the only one who finds the Thumbs Up/Down/Middle for UFC events sort of weird? I get it for wrestling because almost every TV show has individual episodes rated by users on IMDB. That's pretty understandable, and it does lead off from the reader contribution history of the WON. MMA is a sporting event though. I couldn't see a sporting publication leading their coverage of NBA on whether or not people thought it was a good game or just an okay one. Â I've often tracked down MMA fights/shows based on reviews or recommendations. It's a different kettle of fish from most sports, possibly because they're fights, though I have watched my share of classic sports. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014  On some level, I do wish that he tossed star ratings at MMA matches. It would have more value at this point than the wrestling ones: when I get my Mom the UFC box set each Christmas, I try to remember which quality matches from TV (largely PPV Prelimes, but also the Fuel shows she misses) were hot fights to put the dvd in. I guess I should keep a running list during the year... but star ratings would be useful. The solution to that conundrum is to wait for the best of the year Blu-Ray set (the DVDs since 2011 only have the highlight special) instead of buying the annual Ultimate Fight Collection box. You'll get the very best fights of the year, including the bests prelims. There are always omissions (but usually stuff like "Well, they can't put on everything from Fight for the Troops...") and title fights are favored when they shouldn't be (Cain-JDS 3 is not something I ever need to spend half an hour on again), but it's generally a nice set with all of the must-see fights of the year.   2013 25 Matches - 13 PPV Matches -- 1 Prelim -- 2 low/mid Main card -- 3 Semifinals -- 7 Main/Co-Main Events (counting Rhonda-Misha as a Co-Main on the last card)  Half the matches are PPV Main Card, which my Mom and I watch anyway.  Looking at the non PPV:  * UFC on Fuel TV - Cub Swanson vs. Dustin Poirier  Semifinal. Fight of the Night was Watson-Nedkov in the prelims.  * UFC on Fuel TV - Wanderlei Silva vs. Brian Stann  Main Event and it was the Fight of the Night.  * TUF 17 Finale - Cat Zingano vs. Miesha Tate  Middle of the main card. Fight of the Night.  * UFC on Fox - Josh Thomson vs. Nate Diaz  Middle of the main card. Brown-Mein was the Fight of the night, opening the main card.  * UFC on FX - Vitor Belfort vs. Luke Rockhold  Main event, one round knockout. Martins-Larsen was the fight of the night, the opener to the prelim section.  * UFC on Fuel TV - Fabricio Werdum vs. Minotauro Nogueira  Main event. Fight of the night was Silva-Cavalcante in the middle of the main show.  * UFC Fight Night - Travis Browne vs. Alistair Overeem * UFC Fight Night - Chael Sonnen vs. Shogun Rua  Semifinal and Main. Fight of the Night was McDonald vs Pickett low on the card.  * UFC Fight Night - Vitor Belfort vs. Dan Henderson  Main event. Fight of the night was Akhmedov vs Perpetuo in the prelims.  * UFC Fight Night - Mark Hunt vs. Antonio Silva  Main event... and that was a war.  * UFC on Fox - Urijah Faber vs. Michael McDonald * UFC on Fox - Demetrious Johnson vs. Joseph Benavidez  Semifinal and Main, which we watched together. Fight of the night was Barboza vs Castillo in the prelims.  The Best Of doesn't really care about Prelims, and focuses heavily on Main Events and Semis. That's the case for both the PPV and non-PPV cards.  On the flip side, the cost and content of the sets right now are:  $19.96 / 500 Minutes - UFC: Best of 2013 (Blu-ray) $60.23 / 3200 Minutes - UFC Ultimate Fight Collection 2013  I mean... the price value isn't close.  The reason I get the Box Set is to fill in the Cards that my Mom doesn't watch since she's spotty with setting the DVR especially on prelims and her cable company didn't carry on Fuel. And then to sift through those for good fights, which usually means doing some online research. It's not impossible, but a nice star rating list would be cool. I'm not even batshit crazy above limiting it to GREAT~! fights: my mom and I enjoy "good" matches and will enjoy a card of 4 good matches over 3 stinkers and 1 great.  So I'm a bit more interested in quick references when sifting through the 239 matches on the Ultimate Collection. Which we're still doing with the 2013.  FWIW, for anyone trying to catch up on the last few years of UFC, I'd highly recommend the Collections. They have the good stuff and the big stuff, even if some of the big stuff is poor. It's pretty much like the Yearbook concept, just Jul-Jun and organized by Card. They all look available for $60 a pop, and if you're someone who buys "used" you can find them for even less from reputable sellers on Amazon and eBay. I buy them new since they're a gift... but whatever works. It is a crapload of matches each year, with the crap non-Big matches pitched, and most of the bullshit on cards cut out. Great stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Just to be clear: Â The Best of is a cool thing, that price is a good value and they are some good matches. There's a good, quick cheap way for folks to get some cool fights. Â Just that the Collections... they're like the Yearbooks that we tend to love here. They really do rock, and are the price of about 2 PPV when released shortly before Christmas and then drop from there in a few months. There's just a lot of good stuff on them, along with all the important stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Yeah, but I'm an HD snob and I forgot how quickly the Collections drop significantly from retail price. Â There have been a lot of wonky FOTN picks the last year or so, too, FWIW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I always wanted Dave to give star ratings to fights. Never really understood why not. If you can score rounds and provide a qualitative analysis, why not stick a rating on there as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidebottom Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I always wanted Dave to give star ratings to fights. Never really understood why not. If you can score rounds and provide a qualitative analysis, why not stick a rating on there as well? Â Sorry, but the idea of rating an actual sporting contest is stupid. If somebody won via a KO in ten seconds, does that make it a zero star fight? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Maybe, if you're looking for 25 minutes of wrestling. What'd you think of the Bryan/Sheamus flash pin at Mania? Its all subjective so I don't see what difference it makes whether the outcome is scripted or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilclown Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I have thought about giving fights star rating. Think that's worthwhile? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollinger. Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 In a sport where there are still a lot of people who don't watch live, there is value in rating the watchability of a fight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollinger. Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I mean.. it wouldn't necessarily correlate to the star ratings people use for wrestling, in that a 10 second KO wouldn't necessarily correlate to a squash match. You'd be rating the value in watching it after the fact vs rating the work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollinger. Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 In that way, I don't know that stars would be the way to go, but at the least something like Skip It, Watch The Finish/This Round, Watch The Whole Fight... I don't know. Something to think about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shakla Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 I'm not a big MMA fan, but UFC does have the bonus awards, like fight of the night, so maybe star ratings aren't that far-fetched. I'm not sure how you could give DUD ratings or such tho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Doesn't Wade already do this? Couldn't people just refer to those? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Doesn't Wade already do this? Couldn't people just refer to those? I don't think he really has an active role at MMA Torch anymore. Jamie Penick took that over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Yeah, but I'm an HD snob and I forgot how quickly the Collections drop significantly from retail price.    I don't get the PPV in bluray quality, so normal DVD quality is perfectly good. My mom also doesn't have a bluray player... though her current dvd player is getting long of tooth, so it's probably something I'll get her to replace the current one.  There have been a lot of wonky FOTN picks the last year or so, too, FWIW.  Wouldn't disagree with the argument that the FOTN isn't always the best fight on the card. But it usually is a good fight on some level. They also tend not to be 1 minute knock outs, and my mom tends to like fights that build to some good back and forth. She's someone who would like a good ***1/2 fight that went into the 3rd round with quality fighting over a ****1/2 match that ended in 2 minutes but got a high star rating due to the two throwing bombs for 2 minutes and having an EPIC FINISH~!  Melendez-Sanchez, which did win FOTN and made the set... that's far more her type of fight than say Browne-Barnett that also made the set. Melendez's extremely strong & smart performance in the 1st and 2nd rounds, then Diego's comeback in the 3rd, the strange/interesting choice of Diego to try a sub when he had Melendez hurt. It's Diego, he's had so many quality fights that when he has another it's going to get on a set like this. There are other times where she's watched a match of two less famous dudes have a similar fight that she's dug. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014  I always wanted Dave to give star ratings to fights. Never really understood why not. If you can score rounds and provide a qualitative analysis, why not stick a rating on there as well?  Sorry, but the idea of rating an actual sporting contest is stupid. If somebody won via a KO in ten seconds, does that make it a zero star fight?   You're not actually being series, right?  http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/30453/the-10-greatest-world-series-games  http://www.mensfitness.com/life/sports/10-most-memorable-mlb-world-series-wins  http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-10-23/greatest-world-series-yankees-dodgers-reds-red-sox-mets-braves-twins  I could literally post another 100 links to people rating the Greatest WS Games of All-Time... without putting much effort into finding those 100.  We could do the same with most every major sporting event. In fact, people in the first *two days* of this season's NBA were talking about how many really good games there were.  People do it all the time. I'm 100% confident that you "rate" sporting events as well on some level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 In a sport where there are still a lot of people who don't watch live, there is value in rating the watchability of a fight. Â That was my point. Is it a good fight, in a limited number of characters, rather than having to sift through a long review of a Card to try to get an idea of what the good fights on it are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014 Exactly. I don't see how its any more or less preferable than an exhaustive, qualitative review of a fight. Both have merits and I'd appreciate being able to reference both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dooley Posted April 25, 2014 Report Share Posted April 25, 2014   I always wanted Dave to give star ratings to fights. Never really understood why not. If you can score rounds and provide a qualitative analysis, why not stick a rating on there as well?  Sorry, but the idea of rating an actual sporting contest is stupid. If somebody won via a KO in ten seconds, does that make it a zero star fight?   You're not actually being series, right?  http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/30453/the-10-greatest-world-series-games  http://www.mensfitness.com/life/sports/10-most-memorable-mlb-world-series-wins  http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-10-23/greatest-world-series-yankees-dodgers-reds-red-sox-mets-braves-twins  I could literally post another 100 links to people rating the Greatest WS Games of All-Time... without putting much effort into finding those 100.  We could do the same with most every major sporting event. In fact, people in the first *two days* of this season's NBA were talking about how many really good games there were.  People do it all the time. I'm 100% confident that you "rate" sporting events as well on some level.   Star ratings for fights are stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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