Do you remember when every UFC event was loaded with big names and awesome fights? It’s okay if you don’t because those halcyon days never truly existed.

“I wish it were like back in the day when all the cards were stacked and the best always fought the best.”

The above is a familiar refrain of fight fans who feel exhausted by the UFC’s expansive schedule and near-weekly seven hour broadcasts; a lamentation about the good old days when everything was awesome and investing between three and seven hours per month meant you saw every minute of action the UFC had to offer.

It’s a yearning for a simpler time when tracking major names was much easier, events featured a non-stop diet of crucial contests and established fighters and every fight card was can’t miss.

Except that was never really the case.

It feels that way now because, at some point along the way, everyone gets nostalgic for “the way things were” and starts remembering things a little more fondly and looks at those lineups based on who those athletes went on to become and are today, not how they were thought of then.

A decade ago, the UFC delivered 20 events – 11 on pay-per-view, nine on Spike TV – and they weren’t all monsters.

While it’s cool to look back and see some future stars scattered throughout the televised events and get sentimental about some of the great fights that took place in 2008, this notion that pay-per-view events were so much better back rings hollow because there was no way throngs of people were getting all kinds of fired up to see Wilson Gouveia take on Jason Lambert (UFC 80) or tuning in to UFC 91 because there couldn’t wait to see who emerged victorious in the battle between welterweights Dustin Hazelett and Tamdan McCrory.

For the record, it was Hazelett, by first-round submission.

And those nine offerings on Spike have a different sheen now because some of the athletes who headlined those shows went on to become big stars (Kenny Florian, Nathan Diaz) and one featured Anderson Silva on cable in the midst of his middleweight title reign, but the depth of talent and the importance of the contests making up those cards were not as wonderful as people seem to remember.

Two of the nine were Ultimate Fighter Finales, which were rough even back then, and one of the others was the initial Fight for the Troops show, which had Josh Koscheck coming off a loss taking on Yoshiyuki Yoshida in the main event.

People were genuinely excited for that fight as it was approaching because it was a chance to see Yoshida, who was on a nine-fight winning streak overall and coming off a 56-second submission win in his promotional debut, take on an established welterweight talent.

But the equivalent today would be having Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone taking on someone fresh out of LFA or after a single preliminary card win and everyone can agree that installing a fight like that as the main event of a Fight Night card today would be promotional malpractice.

(writes check to Luke Thomas)

It’s just that fight cards were scarce back then and so everyone was happy with whatever they could get their hands on, regardless of quality or importance, and being a fight fan was new and exciting and edgy and there weren’t as many critical names to remember, so getting to see Josh Koscheck on a random cable fight card was great, regardless of whom he was fighting and who else was on the card.

Additionally, pay-per-views were largely sold solely on the main event and everyone was fine with that because we all just wanted to watch fights.

There was none of the “it’s a one-fight card; two fights at best” talk that dominates conversations heading into pay-per-views now because it didn’t matter if the rest of the UFC 83 main card was just alright because Georges St-Pierre was coming home to Montreal to get revenge against Matt Serra and reclaim his position atop the welterweight division.

If you want to track back further than that, into the UFC 30s and 40s and 50s, there were certainly some events packed with familiar names and meaningful fights, but there were also more than a few cards that lacked star power and featured unremarkable names that no one other than the hardest of hardcore fans were checking for back in those days.

Pay-per-views were largely sold solely on the main event and everyone was fine with that because we all just wanted to watch fights.

It would also mean we’re suddenly arguing that a period where Tim Sylvia was the clear top heavyweight and the lightweight division was folded was an awesome period in UFC history and that just doesn’t sound like an argument I’ve heard a lot of people make before.

Light heavyweight was terrific at the time, with the triumvirate of Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz combining for six fights and 23 total pay-per-view main event appearances during that period, and there were some loaded cards, but you also had Andrei Arlovski headline against Justin Eilers and Paul Buentello at UFC 53 and UFC 55, which kind of shoots a hole in the whole “everything was so much better back in the day” argument.

I completely understand people whose fandom has waned and who don’t have time to follow the UFC as closely as they did eight, 10, 12 years ago; it happens to all of us with stuff that used to be really, really important to our life at one point or another.

I’m nowhere near as into music and movies and hockey and baseball as I was during my 20s and early 30s, having redistributed the time I devoted to those things to paying even more attention to MMA (and my career) as well as my family, my dogs and watching Food Network and HGTV because I’m closing in on 40 and home decor and how to make risotto are more important to me now than knowing the St. Louis Cardinals’ pitching rotation or who Lil Uzi Vert is.

What I don’t understand are the people who claim hardcore status but lament “having to watch” so many events and dismiss truly meaningful, entertaining fights week after week after week.

I admit it’s not easy being a UFC fan these days – or cheap – and catching every fight takes a serious time investment, but this notion that it was so much better back in the day always sounds like code to me for “I used to be able to follow along much easier and now it’s too much work.”

That’s a completely valid and understandable position to take, but one that has nothing to do with the quality of the fight cards and level of talent stepping into the cage each night.

If you can’t keep up with everything, no biggie – find what works for you and enjoy as much as you can or choose to consume; just please don’t frame it as “the fights these days suck and the cards aren’t as good as they used to be” because that’s demonstratively false.

The athletes competing in the UFC today are more athletic, more skilled and more talented than at any time in the past, just like in pretty much every other sport. It may not be your favorite time in UFC history, but the overall quality of the fight cards and individual matchups has never been better and if your counterpoint is CM Punk, keep it moving.

The best haven’t always fought the best.

All the cards weren’t loaded.

The UFC wasn’t better back in the day.