When the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced the launch of UFC Fight Pass, the company’s digital streaming platform, at the close of 2013, there were gripes and groans and numerous questions that needed to be answered.
Eight months into its inaugural year of existence, Fight Pass still has some flaws, but on the whole, the platform has been exactly what fight fans should have expected — unless they were operating with unrealistic expectations.
While some winced at the UFC asking for an additional $10 per month from an audience that already has to decide whether to spend $60 every month on a pay-per-view event and potentially spend more on the their cable bill in order to receive the channels that serve as UFC broadcasters in their areas, the “bang for your buck” return on investment for Fight Pass has been high.
Granted, not everyone is keen on getting up at “way too early o’clock” in order to watch low level preliminary card fights from Macau, but the service wasn’t designed with everyone in mind. It was put together for the people that want to see those fights and every fight the UFC puts on throughout the year — from PPV prelims to full events in international locales that might be short on recognizable names, but still satisfy your MMA fix.
In that regard, it’s hard not to see Fight Pass as a success thus far. If you’re a hardcore fan that just loves watching fights and doesn’t mind getting up a little earlier than normal on a Saturday morning to see an event from Abu Dhabi or England or wherever, you’ve witnessed some solid action over the first two-thirds of 2014. Some of the Fight Pass highlights so far this year include:
— Tarec Saffiedine edging out Hyun Gyu Lim
— Dong Hyun Kim’s “Spinning Elbow of Doom” on John Hathaway
— Alexander Gustafsson’s mauling of Jimi Manuwa
— Gegard Mousasi waxing Mark Munoz
— An amazing night of fights in Dublin
If you’ve been skipping the Fight Pass events, you’ve missed the Comeback of the Year (Cathal Pendred), the Knockout of the Year (Kim), a couple of Submission of the Year contenders (Niklas Backstrom, Charles Oliveira) and the continued rise of Gunnar Nelson, who has looked phenomenal in earning a pair of stoppage victories over Omari Akhmedov and Zak Cummings so far this year.
This month features a pair of events broadcasted exclusively on Fight Pass — Saturday’s show from Brazil headlined by Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva vs Andrei Arlovski, and next weekend’s return to Japan, which looks as good or better than some of the televised events this year. For the low, low price of one John A. MacDonald, that buys fight fans access to 23 fights, plus at least one preliminary card fight from UFC 178 at the end of the month.
And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that last weekend’s event headlined by Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Gegard Mousasi was also available on Fight Pass here in Canada due to TV scheduling conflicts.
At less than 50 cents a fight, how good do they have to be in order to be deemed worth the investment? Even in a “normal month” when there is only one Fight Pass event and a handful of prelims, chances are you’re still getting fights at less than a dollar per scrap. As long as the participants don’t spend the entire duration of the bout dancing around on the outside, refusing to engage, you’re getting your money’s worth.
Fans should get their money’s worth for the main card of next month’s Fight Pass event in Sweden as well. Gunnar Nelson makes his third appearance on the platform as he headlines against durable veteran Rick Story, while emerging talents that have the potential to make an impact down the line — Max Holloway, Ilir Latifi and Niklas Backstrom — are also featured.
With many fans unhappy about the level of fights landing on PPV or televised shows, Fight Pass becomes the destination of choice for up-and-comers that are not quite ready to face the established names within their division, but shouldn’t be buried on the preliminary portion of a card where they receive little-to-no attention.
Holloway is a perfect example. He’s a 22-year-old prospect with a 6-3 mark in the UFC (10-3 overall), but each of those losses came against opponents that are currently ranked in the Top 10 — Dustin Poirier, Dennis Bermudez and Conor McGregor — and it could be argued that he deserved the nod against Bermudez.
The platform is far from perfect — searching for specific events, fights and fighters can still be a frustrating exercise and there are still events that are not part of the archives — but it has been solid thus far and only promises to get better.
And look at it this way: if you skipped either UFC 174 or UFC 177, that money could buy you six months of Fight Pass.
Silver linings, people.