Alright guys, try not to kill me on this one. I know the UFC commentary team is always a hot topic with fans and its something I never really comment on. I've been a die hard fan of other sports longer than I've been a die hard in MMA and I believe the UFC consistently has the best commentary overall. Jon Anik is absolutely fantastic at his job in my opinion and shouldn't even be considered part of what I am talking about in this post. I don't see many people who suggest otherwise either. I think Anik is basically as well liked and appreciated as anyone in the MMA "media", if you want to call him media. A lot of the fan contention comes in when its time to discuss the analysts for the show. Of course, that means the presence of former double champion Daniel Cormier and long time UFC analyst and podcaster/comedian Joe Rogan. There's a lot of people who want Joe Rogan removed from the broadcast because of his politics and while I don't agree with everything Rogan says and believes in, I don't want him taken off because of that either. I don't want this to be about his political leanings and neither do you, so we'll leave that there. In the past, I think everyone accepted those three as the A team and anyone else was just a fill in until the UFC could get those three back together. Over the years, a lot of really good analysts have emerged and that is what is contributing to all of this conversation. If there was no one to challenge Rogan and DC as being in the top 2 analysts, then no one would be talking about this. My personal favorite is Michael Bisping. I love the way he balances the seriousness of the sport, but also has fun during the broadcast. He's also a true fighter at heart and lived a long MMA journey, so that buys him a lot of slack with the current roster when he's critical of their performance. I also appreciate Dominick Cruz a lot. He's not the most exciting guy to listen to all the time, but as someone who's never trained before, I love listening to him talk about techniques. He's so helpful in understanding what is happening in the cage for a fan who has a perspective similar to mine, which I think is a majority of the viewing audience. He works best with someone more light hearted because Cruz is all business during the broadcast, which is why I think some fans don't care for him as much. Paul Felder has also been a great addition to the team and I like the balance he brings, which is similar to Bisping. He likes to have fun, but his reputation as a fighter allows him to be hard on the athletes when necessary. He typically likes to smile and laugh, but he can have a no nonsense attitude, like during the bizarre fighter meeting with Diego Sanchez, if you saw that video. I also want to shoutout Laura Sanko. She has done some cage side broadcasting in the past and did the last few nights of contender series a few months back. She was obviously nervous and needs to find her footing and get into a groove, but I liked what she added during those fights. I would like to see her continue to be a part of the team on contender series to gain that experience so that she could potentially move up into a role on fight nights in the future or start filling in on them as needed.
I'm not someone who normally complains about the broadcast team. I've already Jon Anik is awesome and he's not really part of this conversation, but when it comes to the pay per views, he does need mentioned again. That's because DC and Rogan have a tendency to go off the rails sometimes. They will occasionally go off on some tangent and laugh about something irrelevant in the middle of a fight, but it is usually a prelim fight that doesn't have a lot going on. Normally, they can time it pretty well, so it doesn't bother me too much. After all, we're watching this sport to have fun and if the announcers are also having fun, then that just feeds into the atmosphere. I think the problem is that DC and Rogan are so similar. They both have a tendency to want to start those random conversations and Anik is left to try and keep the broadcast moving forward. However, like I said, this normally doesn't bother me too much. That was until this weekend at UFC 270. I don't think the announce team was bad at any point, I just thought it was a little weird at times. UFC 270 wasn't the best or deepest card the UFC has put on, so not a lot of people were super excited for a lot of the fights prior to the two title fights. This left the broadcasters a lot of room to talk about whatever they wanted. By the time the big fights came around, they had sort of gotten into a flow state of just talking and I don't think that tone works for a title fight the same way it does early in the card. I found the commentary not being very helpful or interesting in those fights and sometimes saying things that just didn't make any sense. At one point, I forget who said it, but someone said that Moreno has the power advantage over Figueiredo, which I'm sure most of you know just isn't true. What they were observing was that Brandon Moreno was taking Deiveson Figueiredo's power much better than Figueiredo was absorbing Moreno's. That is not the same as Moreno having the power advantage at all. Now, that's not enough to ruin a broadcast or anything, but it was something I noticed in the moment and caught me as just being a strange thing to say. I also didn't think they were making nearly as big of a deal of Francis Ngannou's wrestling in the main event as I thought it was. They seemed really calm when one of the UFC's champions was pulling out skills no one knew he had and was in the midst of coming back to retain his title after losing the first 2 rounds. Again, that doesn't ruin the broadcast for me, but I just would have liked for it to be better. For two huge, 5 round title fights, the overall tone of the broadcast just felt a little flat. I know this card wasn't the best and it comes on the heels of 2 of the best PPV cards at least since the pandemic, but I think the energy needed to be higher. This was really the first time in awhile that I've found myself wanting more from the team to be honest.
That leaves the question, is it time to mix it up? My answer to that is "maybe". To clarify, I would like to mix it up because I think the others have earned it. They're all great and I would like them to get the opportunity. The problem is, I don't know how you do it without it becoming a big deal. I like how the PPV team is only for PPV's, that makes it seem and feel big. I like how the fighters are always so excited to talk to Joe and have so much respect for him and what he's done for the sport when he does the in cage interview with the winners. I really do like all of that stuff. I just feel like it may be time to try out some new combinations. It's hard to get rid of Joe Rogan because he's been in this spot so long. He's one of the OG's at this point and just kicking him to curb wouldn't feel right. He's friends with Dana, so that wouldn't happen anyways. Like I said before, the fighters also love and respect him too much. He's really the perfect person for the role of the in cage interview as well. He's knowledgeable enough about the sport and the individuals enough to tee up good questions to get the sound bites from them. It would also be a tough blow to remove Daniel Cormier from the PPV team. He's just generally so likable that no one wants to say anything bad about him. He's also the main guy they turn to in order to explain a lot of the wrestling situations that the casual fan won't understand as well. Having DC on the telestrator is one of the best informative parts of the UFC broadcast. Both pieces are great on their own, but its their fit together that really is the question.
I guess if it were up to me, I wouldn't make any changes right now. This is really the first time that their commentary has been an issue for me. I know there's people out there who can't stand them and, while they're entitled to that opinion, I don't really get it. I wouldn't be looking to make any changes after one substandard show, but I would be watching the next one a little more closely. I don't think this will be too much of an issue going forward to be honest. Joe Rogan is 54 years old and with everything else that he's involved in, I don't really see him wanting to travel and continue broadcasting for too much longer. His podcast is so lucrative and, I assume, takes up so much of his time, that I imagine he'll be cutting back on his other things at some point in the near future. I doubt he's looking to do all the travel into his 60s as his podcast is in a centralized location and his guests travel to him. I'm just going to enjoy these years with Joe as part of the team because he really is a fixture of the sport at this point. For better or for worse, the UFC broadcast won't be the same without him. He's so far ahead of everyone else for the in cage interviews that it honestly justifies keeping him around just based on that. Some of the former fighters are fine, but really aren't anything special and I don't really like Big John doing it for the Bellator broadcasts at all.
What do you guys think? Do you like the broadcast as is or would you replace someone? Who would you take out? Who are you replacing them with? Which current fighter do you think will be a great broadcaster once they finish fighting? Leave any and all thoughts below as comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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