Official UFC Thread - Part 4

[Docker2.0]

All in all, a good televised UFC event. I think UFC should this more often to build up the brand. With 90% of their fights on PPV, when if say only 35% should, they are killing their fanbase and not winning over a lot of fans. The ppv on Feb 2 should be a televised event and I'm a big Overeem fan. Having a ppv every month with only one good fight on the card is not how you bring new fans along.

 

[TheVileOne]

Docker 2.0, they are doing four live fight events on Fox per year.

Next live fight card on Fox is April 20 and it has Benson Henderson vs. Gilbert Melendez for the title and Frank Mir vs. Daniel Cormier.

But they had one tonight, they have one in April, and two more later in the year.

Also Docker they are doing a title fight on Fuel TV next month in London. Another Fuel TV fight in March that's in Japan. Another fight in Sweden on Fuel TV later in the year, plus all the FX fights.

So basically a lot of fights are going to be shown for free this year on Fox, FX, and Fuel TV.

UFC 156 is a PPV card, sorry. But there will still be six free fights you can watch. 2 on Facebook and four on FX. So you can watch basically HALF of all the PPV cards for free. It's not killing the fanbase at all.

At some point I am sure UFC will phase out PPV and move toward free TV cards on Fox and Fox Sports but that time hasn't arrived yet.

Also if it is too expensive, go online and check your local bar, Hooters, or Buffalo Wild Wings, most of those places show UFC PPV's for free with NO COVER CHARGE.

If I don't go to a fight live, I go to a local bar and grill that shows all the UFC PPV's and they let you in no cover. If you don't have PPV budget, there are alternatives for you.

We are getting tons of quality free TV fights there year. More title fights on free TV than ever before as well.

 

[Perfect Cell]

While I generally agree with the sentiment that too many UFC PPVs are "one-fight" cards, UFC 156 is absolutely not. All 5 fights on the main card are pretty high-end, top level fights. Aldo/Edgar, Rashad/Lil' Nog, Overeem/Bigfoot, Fitch/Maia and Uncle Creepy/Benavidez. It's one of the best cards on paper in a long time.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah seriously, UFC 156 is freaking STACKED. I mean sure some fights might turn out bad, but on paper it is stacked.

Aldo/Edgar is basically a superfight many have talked about for years. People were saying Edgar should've moved down to featherweight to fight Aldo before he beat BJ Penn.

 

[Perfect Cell]

It really is. Overeem gets his title shot if he wins, I'm sure whoever wins between McCall and Benavidez will be the next challenger for Johnson at flyweight, and Fitch/Maia is a grappler's delight. Plus, you have Rashad coming back after his loss to Jones, and I always like watching the Nogueira bros. fight. The card has the perfect mix of striking, grappling, speed and excitement, from heavyweight to flyweight. My head hurts from the excitement.

I feel like I just plugged the event. UFC 156, brought to you by Bud Light and Harley Davidson. Only on PPV.

 

[TheVileOne]

LOL. But honestly its the truth. Great card for the Super Bowl weekend. This fight was a great lead in for it. You had a bunch of quality free fights and a title fight tonight and a bigger PPV card with some bigger fights next weekend.

Then in less than three months we get two more huge fights on Fox in Melendez/Bendo and Mir/Cormier.

 

[CrypticOne]

I went 8/11 in my fight picks tonight. Only got the Koch, Russow and Thorsen fights wrong.

Great fights! Pettis looked amazing! TJ Grant looked great. Lamas really surprised me. He destroyed Koch on the ground. That was SCARY!

 

[Docker2.0]

Feb 1 was just an example and I do agree its stacked BUT most ppv events are not. I'm a paying fan and don't try and make me seem like I'm villanizing the sport. I love it but want it to grow but just keeping it real. All these freaking ppv fights that SHOULD be on tv is killing UFC. And for those who say it isn't, look at boxing for 2nd and 3rd tier fighters and look at UFC'S top fighters. HUGE difference!

 

[TheVileOne]

Feb 1 was just an example and I do agree its stacked BUT most ppv events are not. I'm a paying fan and don't try and make me seem like I'm villanizing the sport. I love it but want it to grow but just keeping it real. All these freaking ppv fights that SHOULD be on tv is killing UFC. And for those who say it isn't, look at boxing for 2nd and 3rd tier fighters and look at UFC'S top fighters. HUGE difference!

Docker2.0, if you don't want to buy the PPV, you can just watch all the FX and Facebook fights and plenty of other free fights to get your fix.

UFC/MMA is still a growing sport. Only a handful of boxers can make that kind of money.

UFC 156 should not be on free TV, that's a huge card. Now maybe UFC 157, but they are experimenting with women and Ronda Rousey's drawing power.

Next Fox card has two huge PPV level fights we are getting for free. Tons of good quality fights you can get on free TV without having to buy PPV. The model is shifting already.

4 years ago we couldn't get all the prelims on cable or Facebook. That's all changed now. Now we get to watch almost all the prelims be it Facebook, Fuel, or FX.

 

[Perfect Cell]

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the UFC's revenue still comes from PPV and the live gate. It would take one HELL of a TV deal to account for the revenue lost from reducing the amount of PPVs per year. And the current Fox one isn't it. And they're locked into that for a while. As much as I hope that the UFC one day goes into a more traditional sports TV model, it's a long ways off. The UFC simply can't sustain itself without the PPV revenue, and won't be able to for a while.

 

[Project862006]

anyone else absolutely hate John McCarthy's coaching of mighty mouse

essentially being his eyes anytime dodson put his hand on the mat big john would yell DOWN! so mm knew when not to strike

 

[Perfect Cell]

anyone else absolutely hate John McCarthy's coaching of mighty mouse

essentially being his eyes anytime dodson put his hand on the mat big john would yell DOWN! so mm knew when not to strike

I would kind of compare that to when McCarthy warns fighters for pawing with an open hand. In that case, he's trying to prevent eye pokes, which benefit both fighters. Similar situation in this case, where he's just warning against rule violations, since Johnson was clearly in a kneeing position. But yeah, Big John does tend to be more vocal than most refs. For better or worse, depending on your point of view.

 

[TheVileOne]

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the UFC's revenue still comes from PPV and the live gate. It would take one HELL of a TV deal to account for the revenue lost from reducing the amount of PPVs per year. And the current Fox one isn't it. And they're locked into that for a while. As much as I hope that the UFC one day goes into a more traditional sports TV model, it's a long ways off. The UFC simply can't sustain itself without the PPV revenue, and won't be able to for a while.

You mean like getting a $100 million a year from Fox .

 

[Perfect Cell]

Which is nowhere near enough to eliminate the need for PPVs. As unfortunate as it is.

 

[TheVileOne]

There are going to be less PPV's this year, so I don't think its a big deal.

There were a lot of bad injuries last year. Hopefully its not as bad this year. If you are a fan, there are options if you don't want to shell out $55 a month. I haven't bought a UFC PPV since like 2009 yet I watch almost every one.

Next weekend is a stacked card for Super Bowl weekend so it should do well.

 

[Perfect Cell]

Yeah, I go to a bar for every event. Works out easily enough. I don't live in a massive city, but we still have multiple options to choose from in terms of bars or restaurants showing the fights.

In this hypothetical model of free TV being UFC's only distributor, the major hurdle, amongst many, would be the restructuring of the contracts of UFC's top stars. With PPV cuts, The top draws are making millions of dollars per fight. If you take that PPV cut away, where does that income come from. Which is why the Fox events are SO IMPORTANT right now. The UFC needs to establish a strong and permanent niche on network television, in order to prompt Fox to expand the deal in 6 years. The UFC needs eyeballs on Fox, so that Fox will dish out the big money. Then we can start talking about these hypothetical golden times.

 

[TheVileOne]

SlackBrian, I think ad revenue is going to have a big impact. From what I am hearing, Fox was able to sell out all the ad space for this event at a nice premium. UFC hits a lot of key male demos.

Ultimately it will take some building but I think this current Fox deal could take them there.

The other hurdles are expanding MMA into every state and countries that still do not regulate it. New York is a major hurdle right now.

There were some growing pains with Fox, but UFC I think is finding their footing on the networks now. TUF benefited from moving out of Friday. I think the right strategy for the Fox events is put on title fights for the divisions that don't draw a lot on PPV. This way you give fans title fights on free TV and don't miss out on losing a lot of money and save the big title fights and draws for PPV ie Anderson Silva, GSP, Jon Jones, heavyweights, etc.

Road to the Octagon was also a major plus. Now they are running more promotion for UFC during NFL season and the Road to the Octagon specials are great promotional tools.

I think the key to PPV this year is really just to keep all the main guys healthy and the main cards as intact as possible.

Also bigger sponsors too. Nike is now getting into MMA. Rampage now has Reebok as a sponsor. Bud Light and Harley were huge coups for UFC. Let's say they get Gatorade at some point or now this is a bit of a pipe dream a toy line with Mattel, then we are talking about lots more big money that can maybe compensate for phasing out of PPV revenue.

But honestly yeah, I think phasing out PPV is a long way off.

The other big challenge is the Fox Sports plan. Fox is reportedly planning to consolidate all their sports to Fox Sports 1 and 2 and make it their versions of ESPN 1 and 2. That means UFC programming leaves FX where they are doing well right now. So it could be another growing pains/transition period all over again.

 

[Perfect Cell]

To be honest, I hated the news of Fox Sports 1 and 2. No one has succeeded yet at creating the "next ESPN", and I was hoping Fox would have learned from the relative failures of NBC Sports Network and CBS Sports Network. And it really is just awful news for the UFC. Speed Television is getting rebranded as Fox Sports 1, and Fuel as FS2. Speed is only available in (I believe) 80 million US homes. So, the UFC's flagship network goes from FX (100 million homes) to Speed. A huge drop. And Fuel TV still is only in about 30-40 million homes. So, outside of the 4 big Fox shows, the UFC faces an uphill battle.

But, hopefully, the consolidation of all of Fox' sports programming into two spots will provide a singular audience. One that should be geared towards UFC programming. If it works, it'll work well. If not, it's going to be a disaster.

 

[TheVileOne]

Well Fox will have to expand the channel accessibility I think. It's not unusual for channels to expand into greater amount of homes and markets. They will also I think have to make a big ad campaign or push for the re-branding.

It is worrisome though I agree.

 

[Perfect Cell]

True enough, but if Fuel's past year with the UFC is any indication, it might not go that way. Fuel has already essentially become "the UFC network" considering the deluge of UFC programming they air. But unfortunately, the number of households its available in has remained relatively the same.

We're in a difficult time, when it comes to television. So many people are simply canceling their service and moving to internet-based services, that networks and cable companies are getting more and more combative. We all saw how AMC and Dish fought it out, and we lost out on Walking Dead and Breaking Bad and whatnot. It'll definitely be an uphill battle for Fox to increase its networks' presence in this environment.

But yeah, enough business talk. So... Anthony Pettis... he's pretty awesome.

 

[TheVileOne]

Dana White says he gets the winner of Melendez/Henderson. So hopefully no issues there.

 

[Project862006]

excited for next week's ppv

maia/fitch is a fight i am amped to see

wonder if maia can submit fitch

 

[CrypticOne]

Yeah UFC 156 is stacked! That Aldo/Edgar fight is really hard to call. Should be a WAR!

 

[B]

It's sad to see Quinton lose to a guy like Teixeira because Rampage is a better fighter in my opinion. The same way it was bad to see him lose to Bader. The Bader one I can excuse as it's one of the few fights were he has said he has been truly injured & you can genuinely see it from his performance.. however the Teixeira fight there is no excuse for him losing.

Part of his problem is that he is relentlessly stubborn. The days of fighters saying "I'm gonna knock you out" or "I'm gonna go in there & stand toe to toe with you" & actually doing it for 3-5 rounds are over & Rampage hasn't adapted to the change of more well rounded & 'point fighters' as well as some of the other older fighters have.

If he shows up well conditioned, something he didn't look last night & someone is prepared to try to box with him, I'd probably say given his power & excellent head movement/rolls he is one of the most dangerous MMA fighters that primarily uses their hands. Last night though he looked like he tired very early on & as a result Glover was able to take him down pretty effortlessly & made Rampage look like he didn't have any TDD.

I really hope the ****e about him going to boxing or kickboxing isn't true because I don't think he'll do well in either. He either needs to retire now or go away to some lower shows, get himself 3 or 4 fights before this time next year in MMA & just try to get back to his roots of being an aggressive boxing based fighter. He let Glover take the centre of the cage last night for most of the fight, as a result he let Glover somewhat bully him around while he tried to counter off any loose punches Glover through.

In my opinion if Rampage wants to stay in MMA & wants to go right to the top again, he needs to do what he has done in all of his good performances in the UFC/Pride. He needs to be the aggressor, he needs to force & pressure his opponent into mistakes & then he needs to capitalize on them. Going away & clearing his head will work him wonders. If Dan Henderson can stay near the top at his age, so can Rampage as they are both very similar.

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Pettis pretty much not only solidified himself as the best striker at 155 but as one of the top strikers in all of MMA last night. He made Cerrone appear like a mid-level fighter. That liver kick he delivered was just absolutely nasty. Pettis is a freakin' Ninja. I hope Bendo beats Gilbert because I want to see Pettis take the title away from him again. Let's do it again!!

What is there to say about Rampage? He's a legend in the sport but he's so predictable and one-dimensional that it hurts. Since leaving Ibarra and joining Wolfslair, his boxing and striking declined. His sparring and grappling partners, after all, are average at best. Quinton did this to himself, and it blows. If you don't evolve with the sport, you get left behind.