No more 3 round UFC mainevents

[Troy]

Starting soon, all UFC events will end in a five-round fight regardless of whether a title is on the line.

President Dana White confirmed to ESPN.com Thursday the promotion has decided to make all main events five-round affairs, including pay-per-views and shows aired on Spike TV and Versus.

Up to this point, five-round contests have been reserved for title fights.

"From this day forward, as we speak right here, right now, every fight that is a main event that is not a title fight will be five rounds," White said.

The new policy will not have an effect on bouts that have been previously signed off on, such as a light heavyweight fight between Rashad Evans and Phil Davis, which will headline UFC 133 in Philadelphia in August.

White said he felt it was unfair to make the switch on fighters who had already started mentally preparing for a 15-minute fight as opposed to 25 minutes.

"It should be (five rounds)," said White, pertaining to the Evans-Davis fight. "But what I don't want to do to guys is, if we've already signed the bout agreement, you're mentally training for a three-round fight. For us to come back and say, it's a five-round fight, you can't do that to a guy."

According to White, the five rounds will remain in effect even in situations where a fighter pulls out and is replaced on short notice.

I actually liked the fact that five round fights only happened in title fights. It made the title seem even more important than it already is and I would have liked to see it remain that way.

I get that this makes every mainevent important and makes the mainevent match stand out from the rest when there is no title on the line but I prefer things the way they are.

Do you like this change or would you like to see non-title mainevents remain as three round fights?

 

[Weez]

I don't like the change at all. The 5 Round fight gave even more of a "Big Fight" feel to the title fights. I can understand why they'd do it. How many UFC PPVs run out of fights 45 mins beofre its supposed to end? While I'd rather watch live fighting rather than end-of-the-night replays of the Undercard and pre-ppv preliminary matches, save the long ones for the Title fights, Dana.

 

[Deezy]

People have been clamoring for this since the Big Nog/Randy Couture fight, the only thing I expect out of this is more fighters puilling out of fights and Joe Silva pulling his hair out scrambling to find replacements.

5 rounds would only work if the fighters had a big gs tank, meaning HWs wouldn't make for a great 5 rounder. Lighter weight classes would benefit more from this. An example I could use is the recent Guida/Pettis fight, if that was 5 rounds, Guida would've probably gotten the finish on Pettis.