Let me throw a thought at you. Could it be possible that people gravitate to MMA because it has all the appearances of being "real"? And the participants treat it as such. Once upon a time wrestling was that way. You never heard of "storylines" they were called angles. You never heard personas referred to as "characters", they were called gimmicks. You never heard of the boys called "workers", they were wrestlers.
Point is that the number of people in the know was very low.The illusion was there, the allure was there. Not so much the case today.
If we are to sustain as a group and profession, we have to take pride in what we do. We need to stop giving the business away for free. We loved this business so much we put down our money, our time our blood to pursue it.
It seems though that rather than try to advance the business, we are more pre-occupied with the petty bickering of whose dick is the biggest.
It really won't matter if we have no where to stick it. Not the best analogy but best I have at the moment. But really think about it.