Man, you used to be cool

Has the UFC slowly started sucking?

Inside the Octagon
Autumn McDowell
Sports Editor

I remember the days when every card the Ultimate Fighting Championship put on was unreal. Nearly every weight class was stacked, there was a classic good guy vs. villain potential matchup around every corner, and I was more than willing to make my dad shovel out $50 so my brother and I could get the Pay-per-view.

I’m afraid those days are long gone.

What do we have now? Well, instead of having a classic Matt Hughes “day job farmer, night job wrestler” vs. BJ “to the death” Penn, we have Frankie Edgar. Enough said.

Seriously though, I am well aware that Edgar twice proved he was “The Answer” to all of Penn’s pudgy problems, but having him as the lightweight champ really sickened me inside.

Thankfully, Edgar lost his belt last Saturday at UFC 144 to Benson Henderson. Who, you ask? Exactly.

Back in the day, every fight was a blockbuster, every fan – whether they were part-time fans that thought owning an Affliction shirt made them hardcore, or fully committed fans that sat on Sherdog day in and day out – knew the history behind every fighter.

My how those times have changed. Now it’s more like, “Who the hell is that?”    

Before, when random drunk people – or stone cold sober people for that matter – would argue they could “easily” beat up one of the fighters inside the octagon, I would roll my eyes and pretend to laugh while my blood was boiling on the inside. Now, I’m forced to admit that they probably could.

Seriously, where is the league finding these people?

Another fight on the card at UFC 144 featured Ryan Badar vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Now, this was actually supposed to be a half-decent fight. I would hope that most people know who Rampage is, and if you pay attention to the Ultimate Fighter reality show than you know who Badar is, so everyone was happy.

However, I was once again disappointed. It’s probably pretty obvious that I, like most people,was cheering for Rampage. It’s not that I hate Badar or anything, but Rampage is just so much cooler and does one of the best dog impressions that I have ever heard in my entire life.

It just figures that Rampage ended up losing. To top it off, all Rampage basically had to say after the fight was that even he thought he would lose the fight. Sweet Rampage, sweet.

Seriously, maybe he should have let people know that he thought he would lose his own fight and people wouldn’t have bet on him to win, consequently losing money they don’t have because he did what he knew he would do – but no one else knew: lose.

The only good thing that has come out of the UFC putting on such terrible cards and being increasingly boring is that we McDowells are saving ourselves the time and money of even bothering paying for the show.

There just isn’t even a point anymore.