{"id":319914,"date":"2025-12-02T05:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T05:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/319914\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T05:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T05:52:14","slug":"ariel-helwani-says-ufc-feels-uninspired-im-sorry-if-i-care-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/319914\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariel Helwani says UFC “feels uninspired”: “I’m sorry if I care so much”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ariel Helwani is not terribly excited by the UFC product these days and recently offered up his thoughts on some of the marquee matches that have been teed up for next year by the company. It\u2019s worth noting these are also sentiments echoed by not just Helwani but also fans and even former UFC champions<\/a> alike.<\/p>\n

During a recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show, in an excerpt of his show posted to the X account @jedigoodman<\/a>, the titular figure was responding to some fans who have told him to \u2018take a chill pill\u2019 and to just enjoy the fights, Helwani said,<\/p>\n

\u201cI get it, but these things matter. There\u2019s been this video being posted everywhere of like \u2018we used to get announcements like this.\u2019 And it\u2019s Conor [McGregor] and Jose Aldo walking. This elaborate video, and now we get the Instagram lives. Like all of these things. It just feels so uninspired. The matchmaking feels uninspired. The promotion feels uninspired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe announcements feel uninspired. Everything feels uninspired. I\u2019m sorry if I care so much. I\u2019m sorry if I care this much about the product. I get accused of being a hater. No, it\u2019s cause I care, I love it so much. All of it just feels so ho-hum. All of it feels so like ehhh. We just need to put this out there and the people will eat it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ariel Helwani on UFC in 2026: \u201cthere was once a time where they would never do this\u201d<\/p>\n

As the tenured MMA media member further delved into his thoughts on the modern day UFC landscape and methodology, Helwani continued,<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll make the videos and they\u2019ll make the content. They\u2019ll do the interviews and they\u2019ll do all the promotion for us. I want you guys to care as much as we care and it doesn\u2019t feel that way. It doesn\u2019t feel like you\u2019re giving the people what they want. I\u2019m not necessarily saying that \u2018oh everyone wanted Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harrison to headline the first show.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was once a time where they would never do this. An undisputed title has to go on last especially over an interim belt. It has to go on last. Diego Lopes obviously is going to take this title fight, of course. He would be an idiot not to take the title fight. But in what universe does a guy on a one fight winning streak deserve it over a guy on a nine fight winning streak? Especially a guy like Lerone Murphy who is coming off of incredible knockout win<\/a>. [Sighs] It all feels very uninspired.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ariel Helwani is not terribly excited by the UFC product these days and recently offered up his thoughts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[42843,49,48,10359,641,638,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-319914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ariel-helwani","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-dana-white","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}