UFC co-creator responds to recent criticism of ‘boring’ fights and explains how he prevents this

The co-creator of the UFC goes out of his method to try and stop fights from becoming dull to observe.

It’s the very nature of sport across any level that it’s not at all times going to be the form of edge-of-your-seat entertainment that creates fans in the primary place.

In 2025, among the most impressive wins of the yr within the UFC haven’t made for one of the best viewing experience.

UFC 322 was an incredible example of this, with Islam Makhachev dominating Jack Della Maddalena and Valentina Shevchenko completely shutting down Zhang Weili.

The co-creator of the promotion recently gave his thoughts on some big recent matchups not living as much as expectations while revealing how he chooses to counter this.

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Campbell McLaren warns the commission about his fighters stalling while they’re on the bottom

In a recent exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow, Campbell McLaren spoke in regards to the early days of the UFC, where the concept was to see which martial art would conquer the others.

We’ve seen loads of examples contained in the Octagon in recent times where the clear answer to this statement was wrestling, whether it’s what happened at UFC 322 or Khamzat Chimaev’s win over Dricus du Plessis in August.

This often results in criticism and fans being down on events because of them ending in a way that didn’t live as much as the expectations.

“I believe fights could be boring and I believe Dana’s [White] very much aware of that,” McLaren stated. “He doesn’t want boring fights and what’s a boring fight? To an extent, it’s stalling on the bottom or standing up, not engaging.”

McLaren, who’s the CEO of Combate Global, revealed that he takes steps to try and stop this from happening in his promotion, which predominantly features strikers over grapplers.

“All of us use the identical rules, the unified rules, but what we do is we refer to the commission and say our fighters are more rise up than ground game and in the event that they’re on the bottom, there’s a very good likelihood they’re stalling and you have to be aware of that and the commission responds to that. We would like to see motion. I mean in spite of everything, it’s a fight.”

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Campbell McLaren recalls the moment he realized he could do something otherwise to the UFC

When chatting with Bloody Elbow about Combate’s recent move to Los Angeles, Campbell McLaren described the UFC as “pretty perfect because it is”.

Nonetheless, there was one moment where he got here to a realization that this doesn’t mean other promotions can’t achieve success by doing things otherwise.

When being shown across the UFC PI in Las Vegas, he was blown away by how few fighters there have been from certain parts of South America.

This then became his focus with Combate, by putting a special emphasis on these regions while signing young, exciting fighters that might guarantee entertainment.