5 reasons why the UFC should cut down their number of events in 2022

There might be just four weekends left in 2021, but UFC fans still have another three events to look forward to before the year is out, including this weekend's Fight Night. The big question, though, is can you get too much of a good thing?

The UFC has often come under fire – particularly in recent years – for putting on too many events, but should they cut their numbers down in 2022?

While the UFC may have slots to fill with their ESPN deal and a huge, bloated roster to satisfy, the truth is that Dana White and the company might be better off cutting things down slightly next year.

With that in mind, here are five reasons why the UFC should cut their number of events down in 2022.

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#5: Cutting the amount of UFC events would mean a trimmed and more elite roster

A more trimmed UFC roster would allow the promotion to put on more top fights

The UFC’s roster is currently as big as it’s ever been. Despite seemingly cutting fighters on a consistent basis, the promotion is currently home to nearly 700 fighters competing in a total of 12 different weight divisions.

When you consider that most of those fighters have contracts that require the UFC to offer them two or three fights each year, it quickly becomes understandable why the promotion needs to produce so many events.

But does the UFC really need so many fighters on its roster? It’s a fair question to ask.

On the one hand, with the amount of injury withdrawals that the promotion faces on each of its shows – particularly in the era of COVID-19 – it probably makes sense to keep such a huge bank of fighters to call upon.

However, most fighters would jump at the chance to fight in the UFC anyway, meaning that, theoretically at least, the promotion would still have a huge selection of athletes to choose from for a late notice bout.

Khamzat Chimaev, for instance, debuted in the UFC on very late notice in 2020, and is now one of the promotion's fastest-rising stars.

More to the point, being a “UFC fighter” simply doesn’t mean as much these days as it once did – when only the best of the best made it into the octagon and even some tremendous fighters were unable to find their way into the promotion.

Therefore, if the UFC were to trim the amount of events it produces down – and in turn, were to trim their roster – then they’d end up with a more elite, higher quality pool of fighters overall.

Suddenly, being part of the UFC would mean much more than it does today, and in turn, the UFC would completely live up to its tag of the world’s greatest MMA promotion.

#4: Less UFC events would allow the promotion more time to build big fights

The UFC could use more time to build big fights like Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington

2021 has seen the UFC put together a monumental number of huge fights, including bouts such as Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier, Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou vs. Stipe Miocic.

While all of these bouts were box office hits, at times this year it’s felt like big fights have had far less time to build than they would’ve had in the past.

Years ago, a big feud like, for instance, Rashad Evans vs. ‘Rampage’ Jackson seemed to be brewing for ages before the fight actually happened, leaving UFC fans desperate to see the eventual clash.

In comparison, UFC 268’s big grudge match between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington almost seemed to hit the fans out of nowhere – largely because of the many fight cards the UFC already held in October.

Had there been fewer UFC shows in the month prior, then the Usman vs. Covington feud could well have garnered far more attention than it did and perhaps make more money for the UFC in the process.

At the end of the day, the UFC is in the business of putting together the biggest fights possible. These fights would be much bigger were there not so many other events for them to compete against.

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#3: Less UFC events could mean more stars are created

In a world with fewer UFC events, Joaquin Buckley might've become a star for the promotion by now

Cast your mind back to last October for a moment. The UFC produced one of 2020’s better shows in the form of UFC Fight Night: Moraes vs. Sandhagen, and the fighter who stole the show was Joaquin Buckley.

‘New Mansa’ landed a spectacular spinning back kick to finish Impa Kasanganay, and the knockout instantly went viral across the internet, with Buckley becoming an overnight sensation.

However, despite its immense popularity, Buckley’s knockout was quickly forgotten when just one week later, Brian Ortega put on a virtuoso performance to beat Chan Sung Jung – and a week after that, UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov retired after his win over Justin Gaethje.

Buckley did fight again just a month later – again winning by knockout – but the UFC had put on so many fights in the interim that ‘New Mansa’ was practically an unknown again by that stage. Going into 2022, his status isn’t really any better.

In previous years with fewer UFC events, though, Buckley’s knockout would’ve been the only thing talked about by fans for a few weeks, if not months.

That kind of coverage could’ve made him an instant star, and even if he were unable to live up to the hype by climbing into title contention, the UFC could have used him to headline at least one show.

Essentially though, with so many UFC events, even the most exciting fighters can blend into the huge melting pot that is the promotion’s roster. And in a star-driven sport like MMA, that isn’t good.

By cutting its number of events in 2022, the UFC would therefore allow its stars – particularly those who emerge from nowhere – to properly develop, potentially making more money for the promotion down the line.

#2: A reduced number of events would combat fan burnout

Fan interest for the recent UFC show headlined by Aspen Ladd vs. Norma Dumont seemed hugely low

Despite Dana White claiming that the UFC has done “record numbers” in 2021, it’s hard to dispute the idea that in terms of fan interest, the promotion feels colder now than it has done in some time.

While part of this probably has to do with the UFC losing some of its biggest stars this year, with Khabib Nurmagomedov retiring and Jon Jones on hiatus, it’s probably also fair to suggest that even hardcore UFC fans are now suffering from some burnout.

Essentially, if you’ve followed the UFC for the past decade, you’ve gone from a world in which the promotion was putting on maybe two events per month at most to a world in which there’s barely a weekend without a UFC event.

Some fans, of course, can never get enough of the UFC and will tune in to each and every show no matter what. However, for others, the old adage that less is more may well ring true.

That’s definitely more likely to be the case when some of the events produced by the promotion look so weak on paper, with examples being the recent UFC Fight Night cards headlined by Aspen Ladd vs. Norma Dumont and Ketlen Vieira vs. Miesha Tate.

And once UFC fans begin to skip the odd weaker card, how long will it be before their interest wanes entirely?

Essentially, the only way to combat this kind of burnout is to give the fans less events – in turn, making them wait a little more for what they want, thus drawing them in much further.

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#1: Reducing the number of UFC events would make for more stacked cards overall

Stacked cards like the recent UFC 267 might become more commonplace with less events overall

Perhaps the greatest reason for the UFC to cut down on the amount of events it produces in 2022 would be that right now, it seems to be spreading its roster far too thin.

Sure, the UFC is still more than capable of producing a truly stacked card, with recent examples being UFC 267 and UFC 266.

However, too often we see the promotion put together very weak cards – particularly for their Fight Night shows – that feature a headliner with some name value and then very little else underneath.

2021 has seen a handful of extremely weak headline bouts, with fights such as Dan Ige vs. Chan Sung Jung and Aspen Ladd vs. Norma Dumont in particular standing out in the wrong way.

And pay-per-view cards that start off looking excellent can quickly become diluted if one big fight is scratched due to an injury.

If the UFC were to cut its events by merely a third, for instance, though, the majority of the promotion’s weak headline bouts would quickly become very strong main card fights instead.

In turn, we could see much deeper cards overall, with the UFC having the opportunity to stack big-time pay-per-views much more often.

Naturally, that would mean much more interest from the fans – which should theoretically bring in more money for the UFC.