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MMA-GAF |OT5| Father Time Is Undefeated
- Thread starter polyh3dron
- Start date
TUF is far from MMA.
polyh3dron
Banned
Sonnen vs Evans at UFC 167
Stacked card?
All I see are failed takedown attempts resulting in horribad kickboxing matches.
polyh3dron
Banned
Yeah I have to agree with Cumbr.. I'm not so much #TeamPositive as I am #TeamRealisticStacked card?
All I see are failed takedown attempts resulting in horribad kickboxing matches.
Yeah, decent but not mindblowing. Just because we actually recognize all the names for once doesn't mean they're great match-ups on paper. This is supposed to be the 20th anniversary card.
It's so coooooold in theDnerget in herechat
pre-prelims of a ryan bader/glower card...
Sato Koiji
Member
Chits...gimme a link will ya?
bone_and_sinew
breaking down barriers in gratuitous nudity
He deserves it for:
1) Getting himself popped before the JDS fight, thus robbing us of a highly anticipated fight at the time and putting the division in limbo until Cain got healthy.
2) Fighting like a jackass against Big Foot and blowing another title shot as a result.
The loser steroid bully can go back to international Bad MMA. At this point he's better suited fighting Aleks Emelianenko and Jeff Monson in bumfuck nowhere.
Also someone let me know when the Russian midget fight starts.
I agree.
I mean he's just not very good.
Awful cardio
No chin
No heart
Terrible striking
You realize those fights in Japan were works right?
polyh3dron
Banned
Join nerd chat and watch the lutas, yall
polyh3dron
Banned
polyh3dron
Banned
More power than Bisping even.
Basically, he deserves it for not living up to his own hype. The man took down the UFC's biggest PPV draw and proceeded to throw all that promise away.
His third strike was standing in front of a fighter spamming the same kick for a minute straight.
dream
Member
Sometimes when watching MMA and seeing people that appear to be immune from being knocked out or submitted, we forget the old axiom, Theres never a horse that couldnt be rode and theres never a man who couldnt be throwed.
The case in point was UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson, a man who appeared to be immune from sunk in tight submission holds. But like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira found out with Frank Mir, and Jon Fitch found out with Josh Burkman, nobody is immune when the right hold is applied correctly.
Anthony Pettis locked on an armbar on Henderson in the first round. Henderson went to defend it, and Pettis quickly made a subtle change in angles and Henderson was done. He said, tap, tap tap, and Pettis let go of the hold, even though referee Herb Dean hadnt heard it and didnt signal for it to be over. Hendersons right arm was injured, with the severity unknown. He was very upset backstage, but managed to compose himself afterwards, admitting the arm was in great pain.
A few hours later was the perfect storybook ending to a ten-year journey of the Milwaukee-native and protege of Duke Roufus. Pettis went to the cemetery where his father, who was shot and killed in a burglary when Pettis was 16, is buried and put the belt on the gravestone and told his father hed become world champion.
It was one of those movie-like stories that actually played out. Pettis father used to take him to Tae Kwon do class. After his father passed away, he ended up at Roufus school learning kickboxing and MMA, and became the schools star. Pettis started fighting on his 20th birthday. After two years of fighting on local shows around Milwaukee, as the Gladiator Challenge lightweight title, hed amassed an 8-0 record with seven first round finishes when Sean Shelby signed him to the WEC.
Shelby said he was amazing and was championship material, and a combination of crisp quick kicks and a triangle choke finished Mike Campbell in just 1:49. But he sputtered, losing a split decision to the vastly more experienced Bart Palaszewski in his second WEC fight. 18 months later came the Showtime kick, arguably the most famous single spot in the history of U.S. MMA competition, knocking down Henderson and winning the WEC title in the final match in the promotions history on December 16, 2010.
With the win, Pettis was promised a shot at the UFC title and the winner of the Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard fight two weeks later. But that fight ended in a draw. At first, it was announced Edgar would defend against Pettis, but after thinking over what he had said, Dana White changed his tune, and booked Edgar vs. Maynard in a rematch. Pettis instead, was put against Clay Guida, who won a decision over Pettis, knocking him out of the title picture.
Even though Pettis got his hand raised over Jeremy Stephens in his next UFC fight, that seemed to solidify that he may have been a WEC champion, but he didnt appear to be title level in the tougher UFC pool. Stephens was a mid-level lightweight, and probably deserved the win in that fight.
But Pettis rebounded with consecutive first round knockouts over Joe Lauzon and Donald Cerrone, to earn his shot at Henderson.
Then he switched gears. A week after earning his lightweight title shot, after Jose Aldo had won a close decision over Edgar to retain the featherweight title, Pettis texted Dana White.
He said that he wanted to win two titles. He said he could make 145, and he wanted Aldo, who he said would be the tougher challenge than Henderson.
The fight was made for 8/3 in Rio de Janeiro. Pettis suffered a torn lateral collateral ligament in his right knee in training, and had to pull out of the fight. Immediately, he pushed for a match with Henderson four weeks later, saying he could be ready, particularly since the fight would be in his home town of Milwaukee. However, Henderson defending against Canadian TJ Grant, who had knocked out Maynard, was already announced. Plus, Dana White said that the doctors said Pettis wouldnt be ready in time.
Ticket sales werent good for Henderson vs. Grant. Grant then suffered a concussion in training. He waited several weeks, but the symptoms wouldnt clear, and he had to pull out. White called Pettis, who took the fight.
Its likely to be a night that those in the Bradley Center will remember for decades. The local kid who started his career in Milwaukee, and never left, submitted the unsubmittable guy in the first round to win the title. Milwaukee is a city with long memories of local events.
When one of the citys all-time sports heroes, The Crusher, passed away in 2005, on a local television show, people were talking about how you could go into any bar in Milwaukee, even then, and mention pro wrestling, and people would talk about the night that Crusher wrestled Mad Dog Vachon in a cage match in a bloodbath, partially because of the moment when a women tried to climb to the cage to save Crusher. That match was in 1970.
There were 9,178 fans in the Bradley Center paying $915,466 (the number reported that night was $907,116 but we got an updated accurate figure later). Many of those fans came from out of town. No doubt that over the course of his life in the city, Pettis will probably run into tons of people, maybe more than were in the building, over the next several decades, who will tell him how they were there the night he won the title.
PPV numbers, even preliminary, are not available due to the holiday weekend, but checking around a few places indicate they were up significantly from UFC 163, although it would be a huge disappointment if they werent.
There are hardly better storylines to draw than a local product going for a world title in a match that not only did he have a good chance of winning, but against a champion he had already beaten. Instead, UFC 164 did the second lowest gate (ahead of only UFC 150 in Denver, which featured Henderson vs. Edgar for the same title) for a UFC PPV event since 2005.
Ive heard plenty of reasons given, from the idea that all the hotels were booked due to the Harley Davidson festival that week, which is actually the reason the show was booked in Milwaukee in the first place since they are a leading UFC sponsor, that there were so many other activities going on, or that the ticket prices were too high for the market.
Pettis suffered a left knee sprain early in the first round, but after being examined on 9/3, will not need surgery and will only be out seven weeks. Dana White said that night that Pettis would next defend his title against Grant. Grant is still recovering from his concussion and has said that late December would be the earliest he could fight. White said that if Pettis beat Grant, he would likely next put Pettis against Aldo. To me, Id go with Aldo first, because theres no guarantee that Pettis and Aldo will both win their next fights, and Pettis vs. Aldo is a bigger fight that should draw better than either champion against an opponent in their division.
The other key fight saw Josh Barnett finish Frank Mir in just 1:56 in a battle of two of the best heavyweight submission fighters. The catch wrestling vs. BJJ aspect of the fight never materialized, as Barnett overwhelmed Mir with an onslaught of elbows and knees until Mir went down from a hard knee. There was some controversy on the stoppage. I felt it was early, although I also thought the odds werent good that Mir was going to last much longer. Later that night, when thanking people, Barnett mentioned teachers Karl Gotch and Bill Robinson, who brought the nearly forgotten catch-as-catch-can style from the Snakepit of Wigan, England, to the U.S. through pro wrestling.
Mirs testosterone use exemption didnt seem to help him, but Ben Rothwell also got a TUE for his fight with Brandon Vera. Rothwells physique improved significantly. He attributed that to better eating, but the idea of a TUE is supposed to make you normal. Instead you have a guy who is past 30 and suddenly he has these physical changes. Then he credited his cleaner living for the win.
Rothwell, really a mid-level heavyweight who was from nearby Kenosha, WI, when the fight was over, cut a promo. He said if fans wanted to see an epic fight, with lots of relays, make noise and demand that he fight Travis Browne. It was a clever promo. Its probably not going to get him Browne, who is one of the top contenders. But it still got him noticed.
Chad Mendes staked his claim as the top contender for Aldo by knocking out Clay Guida in the third round. It was Mendes fourth straight knockout win, three of which were in the first round. It was the first time Guida had been knocked out in 44 pro fights against some of the best fighters in the lightweight division of the past decade.
Aldos next opponent should be either Mendes, Ricardo Lamas, Cub Swanson or Edgar. Mendes is considered the top contender. Lamas was promised a title shot from his January win over Erik Koch on FOX, and is the only one of the four that Aldo hasnt beaten. Swanson has become a fan favorite for his style, but has losses to Mendes, Lamas and Aldo. Edgar gave Aldo his most competitive fight, losing a close decision in February, and looked great beating Charles Oliveira in his next bout. Still, his bout was too recent and it really should be either Mendes or Lamas.
Overall it was a strong show. The $50,000 bonuses were Pettis for best submission, Mendes for best knockout and Hyun Gu Lims win over Pascal Krauss as the best fight, even though most seemed to think Koch vs. Dustin Poirier should have won those honors.
The case in point was UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson, a man who appeared to be immune from sunk in tight submission holds. But like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira found out with Frank Mir, and Jon Fitch found out with Josh Burkman, nobody is immune when the right hold is applied correctly.
Anthony Pettis locked on an armbar on Henderson in the first round. Henderson went to defend it, and Pettis quickly made a subtle change in angles and Henderson was done. He said, tap, tap tap, and Pettis let go of the hold, even though referee Herb Dean hadnt heard it and didnt signal for it to be over. Hendersons right arm was injured, with the severity unknown. He was very upset backstage, but managed to compose himself afterwards, admitting the arm was in great pain.
A few hours later was the perfect storybook ending to a ten-year journey of the Milwaukee-native and protege of Duke Roufus. Pettis went to the cemetery where his father, who was shot and killed in a burglary when Pettis was 16, is buried and put the belt on the gravestone and told his father hed become world champion.
It was one of those movie-like stories that actually played out. Pettis father used to take him to Tae Kwon do class. After his father passed away, he ended up at Roufus school learning kickboxing and MMA, and became the schools star. Pettis started fighting on his 20th birthday. After two years of fighting on local shows around Milwaukee, as the Gladiator Challenge lightweight title, hed amassed an 8-0 record with seven first round finishes when Sean Shelby signed him to the WEC.
Shelby said he was amazing and was championship material, and a combination of crisp quick kicks and a triangle choke finished Mike Campbell in just 1:49. But he sputtered, losing a split decision to the vastly more experienced Bart Palaszewski in his second WEC fight. 18 months later came the Showtime kick, arguably the most famous single spot in the history of U.S. MMA competition, knocking down Henderson and winning the WEC title in the final match in the promotions history on December 16, 2010.
With the win, Pettis was promised a shot at the UFC title and the winner of the Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard fight two weeks later. But that fight ended in a draw. At first, it was announced Edgar would defend against Pettis, but after thinking over what he had said, Dana White changed his tune, and booked Edgar vs. Maynard in a rematch. Pettis instead, was put against Clay Guida, who won a decision over Pettis, knocking him out of the title picture.
Even though Pettis got his hand raised over Jeremy Stephens in his next UFC fight, that seemed to solidify that he may have been a WEC champion, but he didnt appear to be title level in the tougher UFC pool. Stephens was a mid-level lightweight, and probably deserved the win in that fight.
But Pettis rebounded with consecutive first round knockouts over Joe Lauzon and Donald Cerrone, to earn his shot at Henderson.
Then he switched gears. A week after earning his lightweight title shot, after Jose Aldo had won a close decision over Edgar to retain the featherweight title, Pettis texted Dana White.
He said that he wanted to win two titles. He said he could make 145, and he wanted Aldo, who he said would be the tougher challenge than Henderson.
The fight was made for 8/3 in Rio de Janeiro. Pettis suffered a torn lateral collateral ligament in his right knee in training, and had to pull out of the fight. Immediately, he pushed for a match with Henderson four weeks later, saying he could be ready, particularly since the fight would be in his home town of Milwaukee. However, Henderson defending against Canadian TJ Grant, who had knocked out Maynard, was already announced. Plus, Dana White said that the doctors said Pettis wouldnt be ready in time.
Ticket sales werent good for Henderson vs. Grant. Grant then suffered a concussion in training. He waited several weeks, but the symptoms wouldnt clear, and he had to pull out. White called Pettis, who took the fight.
Its likely to be a night that those in the Bradley Center will remember for decades. The local kid who started his career in Milwaukee, and never left, submitted the unsubmittable guy in the first round to win the title. Milwaukee is a city with long memories of local events.
When one of the citys all-time sports heroes, The Crusher, passed away in 2005, on a local television show, people were talking about how you could go into any bar in Milwaukee, even then, and mention pro wrestling, and people would talk about the night that Crusher wrestled Mad Dog Vachon in a cage match in a bloodbath, partially because of the moment when a women tried to climb to the cage to save Crusher. That match was in 1970.
There were 9,178 fans in the Bradley Center paying $915,466 (the number reported that night was $907,116 but we got an updated accurate figure later). Many of those fans came from out of town. No doubt that over the course of his life in the city, Pettis will probably run into tons of people, maybe more than were in the building, over the next several decades, who will tell him how they were there the night he won the title.
PPV numbers, even preliminary, are not available due to the holiday weekend, but checking around a few places indicate they were up significantly from UFC 163, although it would be a huge disappointment if they werent.
There are hardly better storylines to draw than a local product going for a world title in a match that not only did he have a good chance of winning, but against a champion he had already beaten. Instead, UFC 164 did the second lowest gate (ahead of only UFC 150 in Denver, which featured Henderson vs. Edgar for the same title) for a UFC PPV event since 2005.
Ive heard plenty of reasons given, from the idea that all the hotels were booked due to the Harley Davidson festival that week, which is actually the reason the show was booked in Milwaukee in the first place since they are a leading UFC sponsor, that there were so many other activities going on, or that the ticket prices were too high for the market.
Pettis suffered a left knee sprain early in the first round, but after being examined on 9/3, will not need surgery and will only be out seven weeks. Dana White said that night that Pettis would next defend his title against Grant. Grant is still recovering from his concussion and has said that late December would be the earliest he could fight. White said that if Pettis beat Grant, he would likely next put Pettis against Aldo. To me, Id go with Aldo first, because theres no guarantee that Pettis and Aldo will both win their next fights, and Pettis vs. Aldo is a bigger fight that should draw better than either champion against an opponent in their division.
The other key fight saw Josh Barnett finish Frank Mir in just 1:56 in a battle of two of the best heavyweight submission fighters. The catch wrestling vs. BJJ aspect of the fight never materialized, as Barnett overwhelmed Mir with an onslaught of elbows and knees until Mir went down from a hard knee. There was some controversy on the stoppage. I felt it was early, although I also thought the odds werent good that Mir was going to last much longer. Later that night, when thanking people, Barnett mentioned teachers Karl Gotch and Bill Robinson, who brought the nearly forgotten catch-as-catch-can style from the Snakepit of Wigan, England, to the U.S. through pro wrestling.
Mirs testosterone use exemption didnt seem to help him, but Ben Rothwell also got a TUE for his fight with Brandon Vera. Rothwells physique improved significantly. He attributed that to better eating, but the idea of a TUE is supposed to make you normal. Instead you have a guy who is past 30 and suddenly he has these physical changes. Then he credited his cleaner living for the win.
Rothwell, really a mid-level heavyweight who was from nearby Kenosha, WI, when the fight was over, cut a promo. He said if fans wanted to see an epic fight, with lots of relays, make noise and demand that he fight Travis Browne. It was a clever promo. Its probably not going to get him Browne, who is one of the top contenders. But it still got him noticed.
Chad Mendes staked his claim as the top contender for Aldo by knocking out Clay Guida in the third round. It was Mendes fourth straight knockout win, three of which were in the first round. It was the first time Guida had been knocked out in 44 pro fights against some of the best fighters in the lightweight division of the past decade.
Aldos next opponent should be either Mendes, Ricardo Lamas, Cub Swanson or Edgar. Mendes is considered the top contender. Lamas was promised a title shot from his January win over Erik Koch on FOX, and is the only one of the four that Aldo hasnt beaten. Swanson has become a fan favorite for his style, but has losses to Mendes, Lamas and Aldo. Edgar gave Aldo his most competitive fight, losing a close decision in February, and looked great beating Charles Oliveira in his next bout. Still, his bout was too recent and it really should be either Mendes or Lamas.
Overall it was a strong show. The $50,000 bonuses were Pettis for best submission, Mendes for best knockout and Hyun Gu Lims win over Pascal Krauss as the best fight, even though most seemed to think Koch vs. Dustin Poirier should have won those honors.
dream
Member
There are two ways to look at UFCs second live event on FS 1, held on 8/28 from the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
The show did a 0.69 rating and 824,000 viewers. The good news is that if youre comparing it to the 160,000 or so viewers that FS 1 has been averaging in prime time, its a major success.
The bad news is that UFCs first event on FS 1, just 11 days earlier, did a 1.38 rating and 1,782,000 viewers. So this show did less than half the number of viewers and half the rating. The success of the first show seemed to indicate that most of the fan base that watches UFC on television would seek out and find a show that they wanted to see. FS 1 was a new station, in a new dial position, so its wasnt on your familiar channel list. Sure, that card would have done more than 2 million viewers on FX, and even more than that during the Spike era, but it likely was going to deliver almost no fans switching around to their favorite channels on a Saturday night and suddenly see theres a UFC show. Plus, as far as audience goes FX is in nine percent more homes.
But the rating underscores a bigger issue when it comes to UFC, which is one that the financial success of the big shows has hidden. In a business of making stars, the companys secondary-level stars are far less popular than they were a few years ago. Thats part of the reason why the top level shows are remaining strong but you have rank-and-file shows doing so-so.
As far as why, there are different factors in play. One is the number of shows and number of fighters on the roster making it overwhelming for anyone except the niche that lives and breathes the sport (which includes its decision makers and almost all the hardcore fans that they hear from, and the media that covers it). The other have been the changes in television. The third factor is that possibly the number of stars with charisma is simply less. I think the product of adding more new weight classes has hurt, because when you had five champions, everyone knew all five off the top of their head and they were special. With nine champions, that is no longer the case, so both the champions and the top challengers lose steam because there is only so much room in the brain of average Joe Sports Fan to process when it comes to UFC. Plus, there are no Brock Lesnar and Kimbo Slices, and both of them brought great attention to the sport. The closest is Ronda Rousey, and she has an appeal, but its very different. And perhaps, with the quality of fighters constantly increasing, even the great ones on the way up, the stars dont have the ability to run through guys the way they did a few years ago so dont look as dominant.
While the FS 1 overall numbers for just about everything not UFC has been labeled a big disappointment, its not like ESPN didnt take years to get off the ground. FOX is a huge corporation and has earmarked huge money behind the channel. They are going to get Major League Baseball next season, college football starting now, and no doubt will bid heavily for an NFL game a week at some point. Its going to get stronger and more familiar over the next few years and right now were at the ground floor.
Still, the excuse that FS 1 is new for the rating of show No. 2 would hold water if it wasnt for the fact show No. 1 did double the number, and show No. 2 was heavily pushed during show No. 1. Show No. 2 wasnt as strong a show, but it was a quality Fight Night lineup that a large percentage of what were regular UFC television fans didnt watch.
Right now there are so many different things going on that make aspects of learning from history different. One thing is for sure. Too many shows lessens the value of the individual show. However, the financial dynamic of a business like UFC is completely different from other periods of time.
What they are doing now would have been suicide if it was during a period before television rights became the primary revenue stream for most sports. Running so many shows and falling ratings because of it would have made it less attractive for TV, and TV would have moved on. There are countless examples of this, including in boxing.
However, with so many niche sports networks out there, UFC is making far more money from television presenting lower rated television than it was from higher rated television years ago.
If youre talking financially, the company is likely to be taking in more money this year than any year in its history. The television contract is a fixed number regardless of popularity. And while right now they are only slightly above on PPV where they were at the same period last year, the final four months of the year should be huge as long as there arent key injuries ruining the marquee matches. And they have a far stronger international business, particularly in Brazil.
That said, here is a sobering look at the popularity of the individual show. On April 1, 2009, Carlos Condit, in his UFC debut, faced a good fighter without much of a following in Martin Kampmann, on Spike TV. Kampmann was 5-1 in UFC, but his only bout with a name fighter, Nate Marquardt, he was knocked out in 82 seconds. They did 1.9 million viewers for what ended up being one of the best fights of that year, a split decision win for Kampmann.
In the four plus years that followed, Kampmann had won six of ten, although two of those losses, once to Jake Shields and the other to Diego Sanchez, were decisions that easily could have gone the other way. And the latter was a fantastic fight, the type that both guys should have gotten more over in. But almost every fight was against a name fighter. From a name recognition standpoint, he should have been higher now than in 2009. Before he was thought of as a good fighter, but in six fights, his level was still to be determined. After ten more fights, his level was determined. He was not going to be a title contender, but he was a very good top-ten fighter, the type who would beat most guys, with his only decisive losses being a knockout from Paul Daley and another from Johny Hendricks.
Condit, on the other hand, should have been a far bigger star. He got three-week Countdown publicity on FX for a match with Nick Diaz, a PPV main event for the interim title that he won. He was part of a huge main event with GSP, and while he lost, he came closer to beating GSP than anyone in six years. And while he did lose a decision to Hendricks, it was the kind of a fight that should have elevated his stature. He was ranked No. 3 in the division, behind only GSP and Hendricks.
The same two participants, one a slightly bigger star, the other a much bigger star, drew barely one-third the audience that they had. Sure, part of it was UFC was established on Spike in 2009, and it was on FS 1 in 2013, a new channel. But the rating for the FS 1 debut showed people that most, not all, but most of the viewers that would watch UFC on cable are going to find a show that they want to see.
Less than half of them wanted to see this, on paper, solid show with a high quality TV main event. The first rating says point blank you can only blame the station so much. And you cant blame the station one iota for the drop-off in audience from 8/17 to 8/28. Nor can you blame market conditions or claim the difference between the two numbers is because UFC is losing popularity, because in 11 days, thats not the case.
The answer is that there is so much UFC, that people are going to find the big stuff, and if its not big, theyll skip it because there is too much content to try and keep up with. But even at these depreciated levels, its a big success for a station struggling to find its calling. And UFC is holding up a whole lot better than boxing, which debuted with a Golden Boy promotions show to 156,000 viewers going head-to-head with Raw on 8/19. And that number in no way means boxing is dying, just that boxing fans are not going to watch secondary fights.
Essentially, and this is an inevitable product, the base audience for the non top-tier shows, for both TV and PPV, has declined significantly. Whether it will continue a trend that has been going on for years, or will reverse with the idea their audience will grow as FS 1 grows, is the million dollar question.
This week is a big one with the start of The Ultimate Fighter season on 9/4. UFC has heavily promoted this show, and with the hook of Rousey and Miesha Tate as coaches and women and men in the house together, one would think the show would have done its biggest numbers to date on FX. Well probably know in week one, and certainly by week three, if UFC didnt, in a sense, sacrifice its potentially most attractive season of TUF in order to help build FS 1. I hate making predictions on things like this, but even in a worst case scenario, TUF is likely to be the closest thing to a hit weekly series on the station. But the lower the audience, the less effect the show will have for the 12/28 PPV, and the less impact it will have toward making the coaches and fighters into bigger stars to a larger fan base.
Another point that someone in the TV industry noted to us regarding TUF and Fight Night ratings, is that UFC is still a Southwest and West Coast concentrated sport. Based on interest level, California, Nevada, Washington, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii are per capita the strongest states. Most of those states are Pacific time zone. Instead of the show airing in prime time from 10-11 p.m., in most of those places, because unlike FX and Spike, FS 1 doesnt have a staggered West Coast feed, the show will be 7-8 p.m., and this will hurt the numbers somewhat. For example, the 9/4 Fight Night on the West Coast airs from 2-7 p.m. on a Wednesday and with a prime audience Males 25-49, thats actually a killer for most.
Still, its success or failure has more to do with being on FS 1, and being promoted on FS 1, a new station, what the potential of a weekly series is and if the casual UFC fan finds it compelling enough to be cant miss weekly television. If enough people think the show is great, we saw by 8/17 that it can do well. But anything short of that kind of buzz, and its going to be hurt by being on the new station with the tiny base audience.
UFC is lacking in what I call the Rashad Evans level stars, as well as in making new big stars. Rousey became a star fighter last year on Showtime, really off the Tate fight and then the hype that followed. She was nobody in 2011, a big star in 2012, and as far as fan interest goes, the biggest UFC star of this year even though shes only fought once. It was the UFC publicity machine and media that took her to a different level this year and shes been the companys genuine new superstar success story. And make no mistake about it, the jury is still out on women as headliners long-term.
She did so with her hype specials on Fuel, but had an incredible amount of media surrounding her. Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre and Jon Jones remain as strong as ever, as does Chael Sonnen. But as far as the next level UFC stars, you have Cain Velasquez, Vitor Belfort, Nick Diaz and Miesha Tate, as well as Chris Weidman, who did get over more than any new male fighter this year. But Weidman also had to beat Anderson Silva to do so and really should be stronger than he is. But its the people like Evans, Dan Henderson, Benson Henderson, Gilbert Melendez, Demetrious Johnson, Jose Aldo, Rory MacDonald, Josh Koscheck and others, who have been put in main events, had exposure and hype specials, who dont have the kind of interest that they should have. Or enduring stars like Frank Mir, who may not be title contenders, but theyve been around, have been fighting in significant fights, but they dont have that level interest. This also ties into the struggles in the video game market, in the sense it has its audience but its not as hot to as many, and has less people who have that big star aura to the public.
This all ties together. The company is growing, particularly overseas. While we dont have the books, when it comes to the big revenue streams, which are TV money and PPV money, when 2013 is over, it should be the biggest year in company history, due to its international growth. Then again, if you ignore warning signs based on that, you are WCW in early 1998.
At the end of 2010, of the big 50 in last weeks issue, there were 21 people from UFC on the list when it comes to the home U.S. market. Right now, that number is 12, and Dana White is one of them (we had 13 on the list when published but it was done last minute and some retooling leaves us with 12). Essentially, youve got far more shows and far fewer marquee stars on those shows, and the people who should be the kind of second level stars who can bring people to the table on shows like this, well, thats exactly where they are hurting.
The hoped for situation is that as FS 1 grows, UFC, as prime property, will grow with it, and these type of shows will be back to the level of the Spike days. But I strongly believe being on Spike instead of ESPN all those years was a key to growth. On ESPN, they would have been a niche secondary sport, with the bulk of the promotion around the traditional top-tier sports. On Spike, they were the UFC channel and their events were heavily promoted in commercials and programming and for the stations marketing department, they were the biggest things on the station. If FS 1 gets to where it is hoped they would get, particularly if they get an NFL game in a few years, the station will grow. But UFC will never be its top priority. Right now it should be given its strength compared to all other programming coming out of the blocks.
With UFC having what looks to be on paper its strongest PPV stretch in a long time, its at a weak position advertising. Its still better than February, and they made a success of Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche off Countdown shows that only aired on Fuel, and GSP vs. Diaz was a giant success. The Countdowns on FX were doing close to 500,000 viewers and the FS 1 version for UFC 164 was 150,000. Its the TV hype shows that drew big numbers that were part of the companys growth on PPV and have been a big part of the biggest boxing and UFC PPV shows. Its also those shows that delve into the personalities that help create the interest that makes the new stars.
For years, when it comes to stars on the rise, UFC and WWE were dueling pretty much equal, but over the last year, WWE has taken the lead and this is the category you should most closely look at because its the one that is going to be a big part of the future.
Throwing out the enduring stars on both sides, when it comes to newer made stars, UFC has Rousey, Tate, Weidman and Alistair Overeem, the latter who had the great potential to be a star but it appears will flame out because with his last two knockout losses, its going to be tough to come back to relevance. Plus the jury is out on the women long-term, particularly if Rousey either loses twice or decides to leave for the movies. And even Weidman isnt a guarantee, because if hes not competitive on 12/28, hes not going to remain a big money player.
Of the real top tier fighters in UFC, Rousey is a unique situation. Silva is 38. GSP is still there at the top and not too old but I dont see GSP fighting once his inevitable decline starts and being like a Matt Hughes or Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture or B.J. Penn. For all anyone can say negative about Jon Jones, he is both young and great. On paper, hes the future of the company in the U.S. market, which is why UFC is so careful these days in how hes presented, particularly since the incident last year with Dan Henderson did him no favors from a marketing standpoint.
But his issues in connecting with the public may keep him from being the star his ability has the potential of being. Sonnen is 36 and I dont think anyone is counting on him inside the cage three years from now. Tate is a good fighter, not a great fighter, who is along for the Rousey rivalry, but as far as being an enduring superstar, I dont see it, unless she wins the second fight and a third fight then becomes even bigger. If she loses a second time, shes just a pretty girl on the roster.
Velasquez is a guy who is only going to be a draw as long as hes champion, and thats a matter of his body holding up and somebody great coming along. Hes very popular with Hispanics, a market that UFC has been slow in breaking into. The belief is because of the popularity of boxing and wrestling in that culture, UFC will have similar success. Pretty much nobody dislikes him, but he doesnt have the charisma and personality to reach the level that his fighting ability could take him.
Three years ago at this time, you had a Brock Lesnar, and nobody in UFC can replicate that and its not really fair because they probably wont ever get another one just like that. GSP and Silva were right there in 2010, only three years younger. You had Penn, and the difference between Penn and Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis is huge. You had Kimbo Slice, another freak who didnt last and wasnt going to last and the changes in society and knowledge surrounding MMA and depth of skill level pretty much make the Kimbo Slice and Tank Abbott type characters obsolete.
In 2010, Velasquez was actually significantly bigger because of the rub of beating Lesnar than he is now. You had Carwin, who ended up not meaning a great deal to the future due to injuries. You had the legends like Couture, Liddell, Ortiz and Hughes who could still draw and UFC really doesnt have that dynamic right now. You had the colorful Rampage Jackson, who was still in the top mix. You had the antagonists in Sonnen and Evans, both three years younger, who could put up big numbers with the right foe. With the exception of Sonnen, Im not sure theres anyone on the UFC roster who fits that bill. And this is key, you even had Dan Hardy. This is a key character when comparing a few years ago to today. This was a guy who they were able to take as a nobody, who had some good charisma himself, and they were able to create him as a top draw with one month of TV. To make that dynamic work, you need the right personality, the aura of great punching power and the super over champion. For example, Conor McGregor has everything Dan Hardy had as far as charisma, and really for his size, has more knockout power, but will he have a three week Countdown vehicle with a great storyline (Matt Serra trains Dan Hardy to beat GSP) that gets 700,000 viewers or more?
There is no evidence of any similar erosion when it comes to top-tier PPV shows because those big four, Silva, St-Pierre, Jones and Rousey, are as strong as ever. When I was running the numbers last week, and I try to do this twice a year for patterns, the thing that really surprised me was how much from an interest level the secondary level UFC stars for the most part had fallen.
When there is a fight people want to see, theyll watch it, whether its TV or PPV. For all the talk of how everyones friends no longer watch MMA, when the big fight comes, like GSP vs. Diaz, the numbers are there. This is the exact thing that happened to boxing and it was probably inevitable for MMA in some form, but not necessarily inevitable for UFC as the major league. And as long as television is willing to pay money for hundreds of thousands of viewers of sports, as opposed to millions, the company is making far more money while most shows are going to draw less viewers. But make no mistake about it, the 2009 vs. 2013 Condit vs. Kampmann numbers tell a major story when it comes to popularity of a normal show.
The Condit vs. Kampmann main event peaked at 1.02 million viewers.
The show did lower numbers than every UFC live event ever on FX or Spike in history. It beat every Fuel show, but thats hardly a fair comparison. When it comes to viewers, it beat four of six UFC events on Versus, but Versus was also in those days in 75 million homes vs. 89.2 million for FS 1. A straight ratings comparison is a fairer look, and when it comes to every non-Fuel televised live (or same day tape delayed) show in company history, only one card in history, ironically the classic Sanchez vs. Kampmann fight, which did a 0.67, was lower rated.
For bragging rights, in the 18-49 overall demo, the show was nowhere near No. 1 like the last card, or even near the top on cable. In the money demo, they were down 59% from the first show, from a 1.33 to a 0.55. Still, they more than doubled ESPNs number for a Baltimore Orioles vs. Boston Red Sox game in the 18-49 demo. They did a 0.93 overall in Males 18-49 and 0.17 with women. Usually the UFC TV split is around 70/30, and in the money demo, it was 85/15, and that either says this show had no appeal to women, or in the guys watching with their wife or girlfriend department, well, they chose something else. The show overall lost to the new episode of WWE Main event, which did a 0.8 overall rating and 1.2 million viewers, but probably beat it in the key demos since WWE draws so many more younger and older viewers.
The prelims on FS 2 did a 0.25 rating and 109,000 viewers. The second hour of prelims aired on both FS 1 and FS 2, with the FS 1 hour doing a 0.08 rating and 114,000 viewers. The decision to air those prelims wasnt made until the day of the show and wasnt publicized at all.
The show did a 0.69 rating and 824,000 viewers. The good news is that if youre comparing it to the 160,000 or so viewers that FS 1 has been averaging in prime time, its a major success.
The bad news is that UFCs first event on FS 1, just 11 days earlier, did a 1.38 rating and 1,782,000 viewers. So this show did less than half the number of viewers and half the rating. The success of the first show seemed to indicate that most of the fan base that watches UFC on television would seek out and find a show that they wanted to see. FS 1 was a new station, in a new dial position, so its wasnt on your familiar channel list. Sure, that card would have done more than 2 million viewers on FX, and even more than that during the Spike era, but it likely was going to deliver almost no fans switching around to their favorite channels on a Saturday night and suddenly see theres a UFC show. Plus, as far as audience goes FX is in nine percent more homes.
But the rating underscores a bigger issue when it comes to UFC, which is one that the financial success of the big shows has hidden. In a business of making stars, the companys secondary-level stars are far less popular than they were a few years ago. Thats part of the reason why the top level shows are remaining strong but you have rank-and-file shows doing so-so.
As far as why, there are different factors in play. One is the number of shows and number of fighters on the roster making it overwhelming for anyone except the niche that lives and breathes the sport (which includes its decision makers and almost all the hardcore fans that they hear from, and the media that covers it). The other have been the changes in television. The third factor is that possibly the number of stars with charisma is simply less. I think the product of adding more new weight classes has hurt, because when you had five champions, everyone knew all five off the top of their head and they were special. With nine champions, that is no longer the case, so both the champions and the top challengers lose steam because there is only so much room in the brain of average Joe Sports Fan to process when it comes to UFC. Plus, there are no Brock Lesnar and Kimbo Slices, and both of them brought great attention to the sport. The closest is Ronda Rousey, and she has an appeal, but its very different. And perhaps, with the quality of fighters constantly increasing, even the great ones on the way up, the stars dont have the ability to run through guys the way they did a few years ago so dont look as dominant.
While the FS 1 overall numbers for just about everything not UFC has been labeled a big disappointment, its not like ESPN didnt take years to get off the ground. FOX is a huge corporation and has earmarked huge money behind the channel. They are going to get Major League Baseball next season, college football starting now, and no doubt will bid heavily for an NFL game a week at some point. Its going to get stronger and more familiar over the next few years and right now were at the ground floor.
Still, the excuse that FS 1 is new for the rating of show No. 2 would hold water if it wasnt for the fact show No. 1 did double the number, and show No. 2 was heavily pushed during show No. 1. Show No. 2 wasnt as strong a show, but it was a quality Fight Night lineup that a large percentage of what were regular UFC television fans didnt watch.
Right now there are so many different things going on that make aspects of learning from history different. One thing is for sure. Too many shows lessens the value of the individual show. However, the financial dynamic of a business like UFC is completely different from other periods of time.
What they are doing now would have been suicide if it was during a period before television rights became the primary revenue stream for most sports. Running so many shows and falling ratings because of it would have made it less attractive for TV, and TV would have moved on. There are countless examples of this, including in boxing.
However, with so many niche sports networks out there, UFC is making far more money from television presenting lower rated television than it was from higher rated television years ago.
If youre talking financially, the company is likely to be taking in more money this year than any year in its history. The television contract is a fixed number regardless of popularity. And while right now they are only slightly above on PPV where they were at the same period last year, the final four months of the year should be huge as long as there arent key injuries ruining the marquee matches. And they have a far stronger international business, particularly in Brazil.
That said, here is a sobering look at the popularity of the individual show. On April 1, 2009, Carlos Condit, in his UFC debut, faced a good fighter without much of a following in Martin Kampmann, on Spike TV. Kampmann was 5-1 in UFC, but his only bout with a name fighter, Nate Marquardt, he was knocked out in 82 seconds. They did 1.9 million viewers for what ended up being one of the best fights of that year, a split decision win for Kampmann.
In the four plus years that followed, Kampmann had won six of ten, although two of those losses, once to Jake Shields and the other to Diego Sanchez, were decisions that easily could have gone the other way. And the latter was a fantastic fight, the type that both guys should have gotten more over in. But almost every fight was against a name fighter. From a name recognition standpoint, he should have been higher now than in 2009. Before he was thought of as a good fighter, but in six fights, his level was still to be determined. After ten more fights, his level was determined. He was not going to be a title contender, but he was a very good top-ten fighter, the type who would beat most guys, with his only decisive losses being a knockout from Paul Daley and another from Johny Hendricks.
Condit, on the other hand, should have been a far bigger star. He got three-week Countdown publicity on FX for a match with Nick Diaz, a PPV main event for the interim title that he won. He was part of a huge main event with GSP, and while he lost, he came closer to beating GSP than anyone in six years. And while he did lose a decision to Hendricks, it was the kind of a fight that should have elevated his stature. He was ranked No. 3 in the division, behind only GSP and Hendricks.
The same two participants, one a slightly bigger star, the other a much bigger star, drew barely one-third the audience that they had. Sure, part of it was UFC was established on Spike in 2009, and it was on FS 1 in 2013, a new channel. But the rating for the FS 1 debut showed people that most, not all, but most of the viewers that would watch UFC on cable are going to find a show that they want to see.
Less than half of them wanted to see this, on paper, solid show with a high quality TV main event. The first rating says point blank you can only blame the station so much. And you cant blame the station one iota for the drop-off in audience from 8/17 to 8/28. Nor can you blame market conditions or claim the difference between the two numbers is because UFC is losing popularity, because in 11 days, thats not the case.
The answer is that there is so much UFC, that people are going to find the big stuff, and if its not big, theyll skip it because there is too much content to try and keep up with. But even at these depreciated levels, its a big success for a station struggling to find its calling. And UFC is holding up a whole lot better than boxing, which debuted with a Golden Boy promotions show to 156,000 viewers going head-to-head with Raw on 8/19. And that number in no way means boxing is dying, just that boxing fans are not going to watch secondary fights.
Essentially, and this is an inevitable product, the base audience for the non top-tier shows, for both TV and PPV, has declined significantly. Whether it will continue a trend that has been going on for years, or will reverse with the idea their audience will grow as FS 1 grows, is the million dollar question.
This week is a big one with the start of The Ultimate Fighter season on 9/4. UFC has heavily promoted this show, and with the hook of Rousey and Miesha Tate as coaches and women and men in the house together, one would think the show would have done its biggest numbers to date on FX. Well probably know in week one, and certainly by week three, if UFC didnt, in a sense, sacrifice its potentially most attractive season of TUF in order to help build FS 1. I hate making predictions on things like this, but even in a worst case scenario, TUF is likely to be the closest thing to a hit weekly series on the station. But the lower the audience, the less effect the show will have for the 12/28 PPV, and the less impact it will have toward making the coaches and fighters into bigger stars to a larger fan base.
Another point that someone in the TV industry noted to us regarding TUF and Fight Night ratings, is that UFC is still a Southwest and West Coast concentrated sport. Based on interest level, California, Nevada, Washington, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii are per capita the strongest states. Most of those states are Pacific time zone. Instead of the show airing in prime time from 10-11 p.m., in most of those places, because unlike FX and Spike, FS 1 doesnt have a staggered West Coast feed, the show will be 7-8 p.m., and this will hurt the numbers somewhat. For example, the 9/4 Fight Night on the West Coast airs from 2-7 p.m. on a Wednesday and with a prime audience Males 25-49, thats actually a killer for most.
Still, its success or failure has more to do with being on FS 1, and being promoted on FS 1, a new station, what the potential of a weekly series is and if the casual UFC fan finds it compelling enough to be cant miss weekly television. If enough people think the show is great, we saw by 8/17 that it can do well. But anything short of that kind of buzz, and its going to be hurt by being on the new station with the tiny base audience.
UFC is lacking in what I call the Rashad Evans level stars, as well as in making new big stars. Rousey became a star fighter last year on Showtime, really off the Tate fight and then the hype that followed. She was nobody in 2011, a big star in 2012, and as far as fan interest goes, the biggest UFC star of this year even though shes only fought once. It was the UFC publicity machine and media that took her to a different level this year and shes been the companys genuine new superstar success story. And make no mistake about it, the jury is still out on women as headliners long-term.
She did so with her hype specials on Fuel, but had an incredible amount of media surrounding her. Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre and Jon Jones remain as strong as ever, as does Chael Sonnen. But as far as the next level UFC stars, you have Cain Velasquez, Vitor Belfort, Nick Diaz and Miesha Tate, as well as Chris Weidman, who did get over more than any new male fighter this year. But Weidman also had to beat Anderson Silva to do so and really should be stronger than he is. But its the people like Evans, Dan Henderson, Benson Henderson, Gilbert Melendez, Demetrious Johnson, Jose Aldo, Rory MacDonald, Josh Koscheck and others, who have been put in main events, had exposure and hype specials, who dont have the kind of interest that they should have. Or enduring stars like Frank Mir, who may not be title contenders, but theyve been around, have been fighting in significant fights, but they dont have that level interest. This also ties into the struggles in the video game market, in the sense it has its audience but its not as hot to as many, and has less people who have that big star aura to the public.
This all ties together. The company is growing, particularly overseas. While we dont have the books, when it comes to the big revenue streams, which are TV money and PPV money, when 2013 is over, it should be the biggest year in company history, due to its international growth. Then again, if you ignore warning signs based on that, you are WCW in early 1998.
At the end of 2010, of the big 50 in last weeks issue, there were 21 people from UFC on the list when it comes to the home U.S. market. Right now, that number is 12, and Dana White is one of them (we had 13 on the list when published but it was done last minute and some retooling leaves us with 12). Essentially, youve got far more shows and far fewer marquee stars on those shows, and the people who should be the kind of second level stars who can bring people to the table on shows like this, well, thats exactly where they are hurting.
The hoped for situation is that as FS 1 grows, UFC, as prime property, will grow with it, and these type of shows will be back to the level of the Spike days. But I strongly believe being on Spike instead of ESPN all those years was a key to growth. On ESPN, they would have been a niche secondary sport, with the bulk of the promotion around the traditional top-tier sports. On Spike, they were the UFC channel and their events were heavily promoted in commercials and programming and for the stations marketing department, they were the biggest things on the station. If FS 1 gets to where it is hoped they would get, particularly if they get an NFL game in a few years, the station will grow. But UFC will never be its top priority. Right now it should be given its strength compared to all other programming coming out of the blocks.
With UFC having what looks to be on paper its strongest PPV stretch in a long time, its at a weak position advertising. Its still better than February, and they made a success of Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche off Countdown shows that only aired on Fuel, and GSP vs. Diaz was a giant success. The Countdowns on FX were doing close to 500,000 viewers and the FS 1 version for UFC 164 was 150,000. Its the TV hype shows that drew big numbers that were part of the companys growth on PPV and have been a big part of the biggest boxing and UFC PPV shows. Its also those shows that delve into the personalities that help create the interest that makes the new stars.
For years, when it comes to stars on the rise, UFC and WWE were dueling pretty much equal, but over the last year, WWE has taken the lead and this is the category you should most closely look at because its the one that is going to be a big part of the future.
Throwing out the enduring stars on both sides, when it comes to newer made stars, UFC has Rousey, Tate, Weidman and Alistair Overeem, the latter who had the great potential to be a star but it appears will flame out because with his last two knockout losses, its going to be tough to come back to relevance. Plus the jury is out on the women long-term, particularly if Rousey either loses twice or decides to leave for the movies. And even Weidman isnt a guarantee, because if hes not competitive on 12/28, hes not going to remain a big money player.
Of the real top tier fighters in UFC, Rousey is a unique situation. Silva is 38. GSP is still there at the top and not too old but I dont see GSP fighting once his inevitable decline starts and being like a Matt Hughes or Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture or B.J. Penn. For all anyone can say negative about Jon Jones, he is both young and great. On paper, hes the future of the company in the U.S. market, which is why UFC is so careful these days in how hes presented, particularly since the incident last year with Dan Henderson did him no favors from a marketing standpoint.
But his issues in connecting with the public may keep him from being the star his ability has the potential of being. Sonnen is 36 and I dont think anyone is counting on him inside the cage three years from now. Tate is a good fighter, not a great fighter, who is along for the Rousey rivalry, but as far as being an enduring superstar, I dont see it, unless she wins the second fight and a third fight then becomes even bigger. If she loses a second time, shes just a pretty girl on the roster.
Velasquez is a guy who is only going to be a draw as long as hes champion, and thats a matter of his body holding up and somebody great coming along. Hes very popular with Hispanics, a market that UFC has been slow in breaking into. The belief is because of the popularity of boxing and wrestling in that culture, UFC will have similar success. Pretty much nobody dislikes him, but he doesnt have the charisma and personality to reach the level that his fighting ability could take him.
Three years ago at this time, you had a Brock Lesnar, and nobody in UFC can replicate that and its not really fair because they probably wont ever get another one just like that. GSP and Silva were right there in 2010, only three years younger. You had Penn, and the difference between Penn and Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis is huge. You had Kimbo Slice, another freak who didnt last and wasnt going to last and the changes in society and knowledge surrounding MMA and depth of skill level pretty much make the Kimbo Slice and Tank Abbott type characters obsolete.
In 2010, Velasquez was actually significantly bigger because of the rub of beating Lesnar than he is now. You had Carwin, who ended up not meaning a great deal to the future due to injuries. You had the legends like Couture, Liddell, Ortiz and Hughes who could still draw and UFC really doesnt have that dynamic right now. You had the colorful Rampage Jackson, who was still in the top mix. You had the antagonists in Sonnen and Evans, both three years younger, who could put up big numbers with the right foe. With the exception of Sonnen, Im not sure theres anyone on the UFC roster who fits that bill. And this is key, you even had Dan Hardy. This is a key character when comparing a few years ago to today. This was a guy who they were able to take as a nobody, who had some good charisma himself, and they were able to create him as a top draw with one month of TV. To make that dynamic work, you need the right personality, the aura of great punching power and the super over champion. For example, Conor McGregor has everything Dan Hardy had as far as charisma, and really for his size, has more knockout power, but will he have a three week Countdown vehicle with a great storyline (Matt Serra trains Dan Hardy to beat GSP) that gets 700,000 viewers or more?
There is no evidence of any similar erosion when it comes to top-tier PPV shows because those big four, Silva, St-Pierre, Jones and Rousey, are as strong as ever. When I was running the numbers last week, and I try to do this twice a year for patterns, the thing that really surprised me was how much from an interest level the secondary level UFC stars for the most part had fallen.
When there is a fight people want to see, theyll watch it, whether its TV or PPV. For all the talk of how everyones friends no longer watch MMA, when the big fight comes, like GSP vs. Diaz, the numbers are there. This is the exact thing that happened to boxing and it was probably inevitable for MMA in some form, but not necessarily inevitable for UFC as the major league. And as long as television is willing to pay money for hundreds of thousands of viewers of sports, as opposed to millions, the company is making far more money while most shows are going to draw less viewers. But make no mistake about it, the 2009 vs. 2013 Condit vs. Kampmann numbers tell a major story when it comes to popularity of a normal show.
The Condit vs. Kampmann main event peaked at 1.02 million viewers.
The show did lower numbers than every UFC live event ever on FX or Spike in history. It beat every Fuel show, but thats hardly a fair comparison. When it comes to viewers, it beat four of six UFC events on Versus, but Versus was also in those days in 75 million homes vs. 89.2 million for FS 1. A straight ratings comparison is a fairer look, and when it comes to every non-Fuel televised live (or same day tape delayed) show in company history, only one card in history, ironically the classic Sanchez vs. Kampmann fight, which did a 0.67, was lower rated.
For bragging rights, in the 18-49 overall demo, the show was nowhere near No. 1 like the last card, or even near the top on cable. In the money demo, they were down 59% from the first show, from a 1.33 to a 0.55. Still, they more than doubled ESPNs number for a Baltimore Orioles vs. Boston Red Sox game in the 18-49 demo. They did a 0.93 overall in Males 18-49 and 0.17 with women. Usually the UFC TV split is around 70/30, and in the money demo, it was 85/15, and that either says this show had no appeal to women, or in the guys watching with their wife or girlfriend department, well, they chose something else. The show overall lost to the new episode of WWE Main event, which did a 0.8 overall rating and 1.2 million viewers, but probably beat it in the key demos since WWE draws so many more younger and older viewers.
The prelims on FS 2 did a 0.25 rating and 109,000 viewers. The second hour of prelims aired on both FS 1 and FS 2, with the FS 1 hour doing a 0.08 rating and 114,000 viewers. The decision to air those prelims wasnt made until the day of the show and wasnt publicized at all.
dream
Member
Last weeks seemingly innocuous announcement of a King Mo Lawal vs. Emanuel Newton rematch to create a Bellator interim light heavyweight champion on its 11/2 PPV show has now become one of major controversy.
Bellator officials announced the five-round title match was taking place because champion Attila Vegh was out of action with a shoulder injury. It had been known that Vegh was injured a couple of months back. There was some questioning calling the fight an interim title fight when Veghs injuries werent believed to be that serious. Bellator had prided itself on a model regarding earning titles and title shots through wins, and had never in its history created an interim title.
Nobody questioned the matchmaking, only the interim title aspect. Mo vs. Newton was a legitimate grudge match, a rematch of one of the years biggest upsets, when Newton knocked the heavily-hyped Mo out with a spinning backfist in the first round. Since then, Newton went on to win his tournament, and Mo came back to win a four-man light heavyweight tournament. The match was far more attractive than Vegh facing either man, so the idea made business sense.
The only thing is Bellators mission statement from day one is that matches were made based on a certain criteria, which is win tournaments and get title shots. The idea that matches would be made because somebody was more popular, like is going to happen in any kind of fight sport, was something Bjorn Rebney said would never happen as long as he was involved. Of course, they changed from the rigid stance, as they had to, because of the realities of the fight business.
But then, over this past week, reporter Tomaz Marciniak of Polands MMARocks.pl web site interviewed Vegh, who was in Poland training with Team Nastula, and reportedly training at 100 percent.
In a videotaped interview, he quoted Vegh as saying, as translated by bilingual Wojslaw Rysiewski of the web site Its about business on Bellators side. People want to see the rematch between King Mo and Newton. Thats why my fight is postponed to January, and Ill face the winner of Novembers fight. Im not injured. Im perfectly fine.
I should point out that Vegh absolutely was injured a few months back, because originally the idea was to put Vegh vs. Newton this summer, and the winner of the summer tournament, where Mo was favored and he did win, was to get the title shot in the fall.
After contacting Anthony Mazzuca after this came out, he told us Bellator would release a statement on 9/1, and attached a medical report to show Vegh was really injured.
The statement read:
Numerous websites yesterday posted a story regarding Attila Vegh and statements he allegedly made to a reporter while in Poland. The interview was done in Slovakian, through a reporter speaking Polish, and a number of U.S. websites published the story with inaccurate and misleading information.
Please see the attached medical report to this email, a doctors report provided to Bellator by Atillas doctor detailing his injury and instructing him to do nothing for two months.
Additionally, Atilla has confirmed that his statements were not translated correctly, and were not accurate. Atilla was fully aware that Bellator made numerous attempts to schedule his world title defense vs. Emanuel Newton, and that his injury prevented that bout from occurring and that Bellator was going to schedule an interim world title fight because of the delays.
Attila will be facing the winner of the Newton vs. Mo Interim world title fight in early 2014.
The medical report enclosed was dated April 15, 2013, and stated that in training, Vegh was kicked in the right side of the chest, and that he had suffered a hematoma on the right pectoral (which is not a shoulder injury as was said but as noted, there was a legitimate injury, and that is why Vegh didnt fight this summer). The recommendation was that he needed six to eight weeks of treatment and should not train or fight during that period.
That made perfect sense to cancel a summer fight. But even with eight weeks off, he could start training in mid-August, and would give him plenty of time to have a full training camp for an 11/2 date. There was no time frame reason to have an interim champion, as if somebody needed reconstructive knee surgery and would be out nearly a year like GSP or Dominick Cruz and an interim title is created.
Rysiewski responded to the statement that Vegh was not translated correctly, stating on Twitter, Attila Vegh is translated correctly. Anyone who peaks Polish or Slovakian can attest he says hes not injured. Also, the entire Nastula Team and reporters saw him train and spar 100% with some of the best Polish fighters last week. Not to mention the medical report released by Bellator is from April. Are the guys clueless or what?
An independent translation of the videotaped interview translated by someone who speaks English, Polish and Slovakian on reddit.com said the point in question was Vegh responding to a question that asked that Bellator stated he was injured and cant fight but youre here training and looking great, so whats up with that injury?
It was due to Bellators business. Cause people want to watch the fight King Mo vs. Newton revenge. So my fight will be postponed to January. In November will be the fight of King Mo and Newton and I will be with the winner. Whoever wins, King Mo or Newton. So this isnt an injury. Everything is all right.
When asked if he was annoyed with what happened, the translation of Veghs response was:I can tolerate it.
Vegh said he was first told he was going to fight in September, but then they told him the fight would be in January, and he was going to start serious training in October.
The issue here is Bellator didnt need to make Mo vs. Newton into an interim title fight other than I guess they wanted to advertise Rampage vs. Tito Ortiz plus three title fights, but also wanted King Mo on the card. They could have booked Mo vs. Newton as a grudge match with a title shot at stake for the PPV. Technically, based on winning a tournament for a shot, the loser should also get a title shot, but thats another issue. The only division they could have added a title match to is heavyweight, with the champion, Alexander Volkov, and challenger, Vitaly Minakov. Honestly, that fight would mean nothing on PPV, but it would allow them to say three title matches, a grudge match and a main event.
Whatever could have been done, they did what they did. The bad part of this is that every promotion, when a legitimate injury takes place and the replacement fight was more marketable than the original (such as T.J. Grant pulling out of the UFC lightweight title fight with Benson Henderson and being replaced by home town and better known Anthony Pettis) is now going to have people questioning the injuries.
With FS 1 getting out of the blocks so weak, and UFC doing so well for the station, the decision was made to show as much UFC as possible. On the 8/28 show, the original schedule was two hours of prelims on FS 2 followed by three hours on FS 1. The decision was made that morning to simulcast the second hour of prelims on both FS 1 and FS 2. Starting with 9/4, the previous idea of having either two or three hours of prelims on FS 2 and two or three hour main cards on FS 1 was changed to where all shows will be five hours in length, airing a minimum of 10 fights, all on FS 1. For TV purposes, they will be counted as two different shows because a five hour UFC show will not do particularly well in the ratings because most fans arent going to watch for that long. In most cases, the time slot will be 6-11 p.m. Eastern time, although on 9/4, because the live card is the lead-in to Ultimate Fighter, which starts at 10 p.m., its 5-10 p.m. and on that day they are doing eight straight hours of UFC with a pre-game show at 4 p.m., the five hours of fights, and the two hour first episode of Ultimate Fighter. In addition, the 10/26 show in Manchester headlined by Mark Munoz vs. Michael Bisping has been moved from FS 2 to FS 1 because FS 1 wants as much UFC as it can get. Well, in the case of the latter, theres zero negative in having a show moved from FS 2 to FS 1.
Dana White said Wanderlei Silva has a back injury and wont be able to fight until early 2014. That makes him posting that video last week and demanding Dana White make that match seem really strange, especially since White tried to make the match and said the hold-up was Silva wanted PPV points. Its weird. Silva is training every day at the gym, doing both weights and cardio. He gets asked all the time when hes fighting Chael and his response is always, Im ready. But who knows? Im not saying hes not hurt, because he is telling UFC hes hurt and wont be able to fight until the new year, and doing cardio and lifting isnt the same as fight training. But he does tell people who ask that hes ready. Right now it looks like Sonnen will face Phil Davis on the 11/16 show in Las Vegas as the semifinal, although nobody seems excited about that one and Sonnen on Twitter actually asked Rashad Evans if he was free on 11/16. Thats more of a marquee fight in the sense they are names, but Evans stock has dropped greatly in the last year and his PPV numbers against Dan Henderson were scary bad. Sonnen said he wants to move to 185 and I dont know a good reason he shouldnt, even though hes going to fight wherever they ask. He looked small against Shogun Rua, but still won. Really, hes probably best suited at 195 because at 185 it feels like he cuts too much, although he can make it. Time will tell but to me, Davis is one of those guys who can win fights but not get anyone to care about him. Sonnen should be in with people where people will care about the match. Davis beating Sonnen wont convince anyone he can beat Jon Jones and the Glover Teixeira vs. Ryan Bader makes more sense (particularly Teixeira) if you want to build Davis for a title shot. White later said he wasnt opposed to Sonnen vs. Evans.
The company spent $7.8 million to purchase 24 acres of land in Las Vegas near the airport to build a new headquarters. Nothing was announced as far as when ground would be breaking on building the new office or when it would be completed.
As far as advance ticket sales go, the 9/4 show in Belo Horizonte, Brazil only sold 4,200 tickets as of two days ahead of time for the second UFC show in the market. Because sales were slow, they almost moved the show to a smaller venue. The 9/21 show in Toronto with the Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson main event has sold 9,000 tickets for $1.5 million, so unless they paper like crazy, thats not coming close to being full and its with Jones. 10/19 in Houston with Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos sold out the first weekend tickets were put on sale with 14,000 tickets sold and $2.3 million, which is the star show of the next few months. The 10/26 show in Manchester at the Evening News Arena with Michael Bisping vs. Mark Munoz has sold 5,500 tickets for $1.1 million. Thats telling regarding how much steam Bisping has lost in that market. The 11/16 show in Las Vegas with GSP vs. Johny Hendricks sold 7,000 tickets for $2.66 million just through ticket outlets, not including any casino buys. In a sense youd hope GSP would sellout immediately for his first fight back in Vegas in years, but everyone knows the 12/28 show is the big one. Plus, a lot of tickets were already sold to casinos that arent accounted for so we dont know what the real number is, only that its not sold out at this point. The show is going to end up likely doing more than $4 million and no way you can say that figure isnt great.
Ronda Rousey left for Bulgaria for The Expendables 3 more than a week ago. Shes been doing two-a-days training based around when shes needed for filming. She said its actually better in a sense as shes away from all the daily activities you have to do because aside from filming. As soon as that movie is done, she shoots Fast and Furious and then has her final camp in Southern California leading to the fight.
White, in making the case that Eddie Alvarez got screwed by Bellator, said that if Alvarez was to lose again to Michael Chandler that he wouldnt be interested in him because he doesnt want to take Bellator rejects.
He also said that even though Bjorn Rebney said hed waive the matching rights clause with Ben Askren, that hes done no such thing and because of that clause, getting Askren isnt going to be easy. Bjorn Rebneys a scumbag, White said. The guys says, `Yeah, were going to let them go. Lets just part ways. He aint f***ing parting ways with him. Hes got a matching right and all that bullshit. So, well see what happens to Ben. First they said theyre going to let him go and theyre not going to let him go. Theyll probably end up suing him, too, making him sit out and lose a bunch of f***ing money and f*** him in the deal. .
Former Bellator welterweight champion Lyman Good appeared on 8/27 at the tryouts for the next season of Ultimate Fighter. Good, who had lost his title to Ben Askren, had lost a split decision in the semifinals of one tournament and then lost to Andrey Koreshkov in the finals of the companys most recent welterweight tournament. However, Bellator just released him. Lamumba Sayres, a Strikeforce regular and former Bellator fighter Luis Palomino were also at the tryouts.
Michael Bisping didnt have surgery for the pinched nerve, which hurts his power on his right side. Surgery would mean taking a long time off. He had an epidural cortisone shot which he said helped a little, but the problem is still there. He almost never talks about the problem.
Bellator officials announced the five-round title match was taking place because champion Attila Vegh was out of action with a shoulder injury. It had been known that Vegh was injured a couple of months back. There was some questioning calling the fight an interim title fight when Veghs injuries werent believed to be that serious. Bellator had prided itself on a model regarding earning titles and title shots through wins, and had never in its history created an interim title.
Nobody questioned the matchmaking, only the interim title aspect. Mo vs. Newton was a legitimate grudge match, a rematch of one of the years biggest upsets, when Newton knocked the heavily-hyped Mo out with a spinning backfist in the first round. Since then, Newton went on to win his tournament, and Mo came back to win a four-man light heavyweight tournament. The match was far more attractive than Vegh facing either man, so the idea made business sense.
The only thing is Bellators mission statement from day one is that matches were made based on a certain criteria, which is win tournaments and get title shots. The idea that matches would be made because somebody was more popular, like is going to happen in any kind of fight sport, was something Bjorn Rebney said would never happen as long as he was involved. Of course, they changed from the rigid stance, as they had to, because of the realities of the fight business.
But then, over this past week, reporter Tomaz Marciniak of Polands MMARocks.pl web site interviewed Vegh, who was in Poland training with Team Nastula, and reportedly training at 100 percent.
In a videotaped interview, he quoted Vegh as saying, as translated by bilingual Wojslaw Rysiewski of the web site Its about business on Bellators side. People want to see the rematch between King Mo and Newton. Thats why my fight is postponed to January, and Ill face the winner of Novembers fight. Im not injured. Im perfectly fine.
I should point out that Vegh absolutely was injured a few months back, because originally the idea was to put Vegh vs. Newton this summer, and the winner of the summer tournament, where Mo was favored and he did win, was to get the title shot in the fall.
After contacting Anthony Mazzuca after this came out, he told us Bellator would release a statement on 9/1, and attached a medical report to show Vegh was really injured.
The statement read:
Numerous websites yesterday posted a story regarding Attila Vegh and statements he allegedly made to a reporter while in Poland. The interview was done in Slovakian, through a reporter speaking Polish, and a number of U.S. websites published the story with inaccurate and misleading information.
Please see the attached medical report to this email, a doctors report provided to Bellator by Atillas doctor detailing his injury and instructing him to do nothing for two months.
Additionally, Atilla has confirmed that his statements were not translated correctly, and were not accurate. Atilla was fully aware that Bellator made numerous attempts to schedule his world title defense vs. Emanuel Newton, and that his injury prevented that bout from occurring and that Bellator was going to schedule an interim world title fight because of the delays.
Attila will be facing the winner of the Newton vs. Mo Interim world title fight in early 2014.
The medical report enclosed was dated April 15, 2013, and stated that in training, Vegh was kicked in the right side of the chest, and that he had suffered a hematoma on the right pectoral (which is not a shoulder injury as was said but as noted, there was a legitimate injury, and that is why Vegh didnt fight this summer). The recommendation was that he needed six to eight weeks of treatment and should not train or fight during that period.
That made perfect sense to cancel a summer fight. But even with eight weeks off, he could start training in mid-August, and would give him plenty of time to have a full training camp for an 11/2 date. There was no time frame reason to have an interim champion, as if somebody needed reconstructive knee surgery and would be out nearly a year like GSP or Dominick Cruz and an interim title is created.
Rysiewski responded to the statement that Vegh was not translated correctly, stating on Twitter, Attila Vegh is translated correctly. Anyone who peaks Polish or Slovakian can attest he says hes not injured. Also, the entire Nastula Team and reporters saw him train and spar 100% with some of the best Polish fighters last week. Not to mention the medical report released by Bellator is from April. Are the guys clueless or what?
An independent translation of the videotaped interview translated by someone who speaks English, Polish and Slovakian on reddit.com said the point in question was Vegh responding to a question that asked that Bellator stated he was injured and cant fight but youre here training and looking great, so whats up with that injury?
It was due to Bellators business. Cause people want to watch the fight King Mo vs. Newton revenge. So my fight will be postponed to January. In November will be the fight of King Mo and Newton and I will be with the winner. Whoever wins, King Mo or Newton. So this isnt an injury. Everything is all right.
When asked if he was annoyed with what happened, the translation of Veghs response was:I can tolerate it.
Vegh said he was first told he was going to fight in September, but then they told him the fight would be in January, and he was going to start serious training in October.
The issue here is Bellator didnt need to make Mo vs. Newton into an interim title fight other than I guess they wanted to advertise Rampage vs. Tito Ortiz plus three title fights, but also wanted King Mo on the card. They could have booked Mo vs. Newton as a grudge match with a title shot at stake for the PPV. Technically, based on winning a tournament for a shot, the loser should also get a title shot, but thats another issue. The only division they could have added a title match to is heavyweight, with the champion, Alexander Volkov, and challenger, Vitaly Minakov. Honestly, that fight would mean nothing on PPV, but it would allow them to say three title matches, a grudge match and a main event.
Whatever could have been done, they did what they did. The bad part of this is that every promotion, when a legitimate injury takes place and the replacement fight was more marketable than the original (such as T.J. Grant pulling out of the UFC lightweight title fight with Benson Henderson and being replaced by home town and better known Anthony Pettis) is now going to have people questioning the injuries.
With FS 1 getting out of the blocks so weak, and UFC doing so well for the station, the decision was made to show as much UFC as possible. On the 8/28 show, the original schedule was two hours of prelims on FS 2 followed by three hours on FS 1. The decision was made that morning to simulcast the second hour of prelims on both FS 1 and FS 2. Starting with 9/4, the previous idea of having either two or three hours of prelims on FS 2 and two or three hour main cards on FS 1 was changed to where all shows will be five hours in length, airing a minimum of 10 fights, all on FS 1. For TV purposes, they will be counted as two different shows because a five hour UFC show will not do particularly well in the ratings because most fans arent going to watch for that long. In most cases, the time slot will be 6-11 p.m. Eastern time, although on 9/4, because the live card is the lead-in to Ultimate Fighter, which starts at 10 p.m., its 5-10 p.m. and on that day they are doing eight straight hours of UFC with a pre-game show at 4 p.m., the five hours of fights, and the two hour first episode of Ultimate Fighter. In addition, the 10/26 show in Manchester headlined by Mark Munoz vs. Michael Bisping has been moved from FS 2 to FS 1 because FS 1 wants as much UFC as it can get. Well, in the case of the latter, theres zero negative in having a show moved from FS 2 to FS 1.
Dana White said Wanderlei Silva has a back injury and wont be able to fight until early 2014. That makes him posting that video last week and demanding Dana White make that match seem really strange, especially since White tried to make the match and said the hold-up was Silva wanted PPV points. Its weird. Silva is training every day at the gym, doing both weights and cardio. He gets asked all the time when hes fighting Chael and his response is always, Im ready. But who knows? Im not saying hes not hurt, because he is telling UFC hes hurt and wont be able to fight until the new year, and doing cardio and lifting isnt the same as fight training. But he does tell people who ask that hes ready. Right now it looks like Sonnen will face Phil Davis on the 11/16 show in Las Vegas as the semifinal, although nobody seems excited about that one and Sonnen on Twitter actually asked Rashad Evans if he was free on 11/16. Thats more of a marquee fight in the sense they are names, but Evans stock has dropped greatly in the last year and his PPV numbers against Dan Henderson were scary bad. Sonnen said he wants to move to 185 and I dont know a good reason he shouldnt, even though hes going to fight wherever they ask. He looked small against Shogun Rua, but still won. Really, hes probably best suited at 195 because at 185 it feels like he cuts too much, although he can make it. Time will tell but to me, Davis is one of those guys who can win fights but not get anyone to care about him. Sonnen should be in with people where people will care about the match. Davis beating Sonnen wont convince anyone he can beat Jon Jones and the Glover Teixeira vs. Ryan Bader makes more sense (particularly Teixeira) if you want to build Davis for a title shot. White later said he wasnt opposed to Sonnen vs. Evans.
The company spent $7.8 million to purchase 24 acres of land in Las Vegas near the airport to build a new headquarters. Nothing was announced as far as when ground would be breaking on building the new office or when it would be completed.
As far as advance ticket sales go, the 9/4 show in Belo Horizonte, Brazil only sold 4,200 tickets as of two days ahead of time for the second UFC show in the market. Because sales were slow, they almost moved the show to a smaller venue. The 9/21 show in Toronto with the Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson main event has sold 9,000 tickets for $1.5 million, so unless they paper like crazy, thats not coming close to being full and its with Jones. 10/19 in Houston with Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos sold out the first weekend tickets were put on sale with 14,000 tickets sold and $2.3 million, which is the star show of the next few months. The 10/26 show in Manchester at the Evening News Arena with Michael Bisping vs. Mark Munoz has sold 5,500 tickets for $1.1 million. Thats telling regarding how much steam Bisping has lost in that market. The 11/16 show in Las Vegas with GSP vs. Johny Hendricks sold 7,000 tickets for $2.66 million just through ticket outlets, not including any casino buys. In a sense youd hope GSP would sellout immediately for his first fight back in Vegas in years, but everyone knows the 12/28 show is the big one. Plus, a lot of tickets were already sold to casinos that arent accounted for so we dont know what the real number is, only that its not sold out at this point. The show is going to end up likely doing more than $4 million and no way you can say that figure isnt great.
Ronda Rousey left for Bulgaria for The Expendables 3 more than a week ago. Shes been doing two-a-days training based around when shes needed for filming. She said its actually better in a sense as shes away from all the daily activities you have to do because aside from filming. As soon as that movie is done, she shoots Fast and Furious and then has her final camp in Southern California leading to the fight.
White, in making the case that Eddie Alvarez got screwed by Bellator, said that if Alvarez was to lose again to Michael Chandler that he wouldnt be interested in him because he doesnt want to take Bellator rejects.
He also said that even though Bjorn Rebney said hed waive the matching rights clause with Ben Askren, that hes done no such thing and because of that clause, getting Askren isnt going to be easy. Bjorn Rebneys a scumbag, White said. The guys says, `Yeah, were going to let them go. Lets just part ways. He aint f***ing parting ways with him. Hes got a matching right and all that bullshit. So, well see what happens to Ben. First they said theyre going to let him go and theyre not going to let him go. Theyll probably end up suing him, too, making him sit out and lose a bunch of f***ing money and f*** him in the deal. .
Former Bellator welterweight champion Lyman Good appeared on 8/27 at the tryouts for the next season of Ultimate Fighter. Good, who had lost his title to Ben Askren, had lost a split decision in the semifinals of one tournament and then lost to Andrey Koreshkov in the finals of the companys most recent welterweight tournament. However, Bellator just released him. Lamumba Sayres, a Strikeforce regular and former Bellator fighter Luis Palomino were also at the tryouts.
Michael Bisping didnt have surgery for the pinched nerve, which hurts his power on his right side. Surgery would mean taking a long time off. He had an epidural cortisone shot which he said helped a little, but the problem is still there. He almost never talks about the problem.
BigJonsson
Member
I'd fear for my life if I beat a Brazilian in Brazil
Guess you are all on IRC
Guess you are all on IRC
BigJonsson
Member
Heh, they have an hour for Bader/Tex
Alex Anderson
Member
JACAREEEE
God damn I am so sick of this Harley ad
God damn I am so sick of this Harley ad
AwesomeSauce
MagsMoonshine
Okami looked shooked the whole fight.
After a TKO inside of the first three minutes, I can't tell either.
BigJonsson
Member
wtf Bader, where is the Star Wars music
lol @ Ultra Lube hat.........
lol @ Ultra Lube hat.........
Washed_Out
Member
God I hope Glover wins. He is way overrated, gases out too quickly. Jones will kill him easily.
BigJonsson
Member
Another Brazil cancrusher card
Washed_Out
Member
So beating scrubs like Bader gets people title shots? Have Glover fight a top 10 fighter for once.
Host Samurai
Member
Thank you for sending Bader back to the prelims.
Bader fought very aggressive though, unlike his wrestle fuck fest vs Rampage.
Bader fought very aggressive though, unlike his wrestle fuck fest vs Rampage.
AwesomeSauce
MagsMoonshine
Wake up call to fight safe and boring from now on.
BigJonsson
Member
20 minutes to girl on girl violence
BigJonsson
Member
TUF!